Ben Goodkind - An American Hobo in Europe

By WINDY BILL

A TRUE NARRATIVE OF THE ADVENTURES
OF A POOR AMERICAN AT HOME
AND IN THE OLD COUNTRY

PRESS OF THE CALKINS PUBLISHING HOUSE
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.

Copyright 1907 by B. Goodkind

Stranger, will you please permit me to give you an introduction to a particular friend of mine, little Billy. Little Billy and I had long been friends and had become so intimate that we were more like brothers than friends. Some brothers indeed do not stick to each other as closely as Billy and I did for we never quarreled and the worst that ever happened between us was a little growl which we soon got over.

Billy and I had been on the bum together a long while and had prospected for gold and other things in Utah, Nevada and California. The adventures we had if I were to relate them would fill several such volumes as this. And many of them were worth relating, too, but I will merely give a general outline of our experiences, for his experiences were mostly mine.

While hiking it along the railroad one day between Ogden and Salt Lake City which is a distance of about thirty-seven miles, we ran across a couple of pretty Mormon girls about half a mile from town and they made goo-goo eyes at us. Billy, who is rather reserved with strangers, was for moving on, but I, who am a friendly and sociable cuss, was in for having a little time with them.

"What's the harm, Billy?" said I to my chum; "let's see what kind of stuff the girls are made of."

"Oh, what's the use, Windy," responded Billy; "we might get into trouble."

"Trouble be blowed," said I; "they ain't agoing to make any trouble so why should we. Let's see what their game is anyway."

We approached the ladies, tipped our hats, and passed the compliments of the day. They responded pleasantly enough, entered into a conversation with us and soon we all strolled further on from the town and sat down on a viaduct spanning a rushing irrigation ditch. Billy was as chipper as anyone when once he got started and held his end down in the conversation first class. The girls were merry and talkative and seemed to like to talk to the fellers. They told us all about the Mormons, how they live, act, and what they do, and Billy wanted to know how Mormons got married.

"Why don't you get married and find out?" asked one of the girls.

"I ain't no Mormon," spoke up Billy.

"You can be if you want to," says the girl, "religion is free."

"All right," says Billy, "I'll think it over."

The girls were giving us a game I thought, but we could stand it if they could. We chinned away there for hours until it began to grow late, when the girls concluded they would have to go. We were sorry to part from such elegant company but it was a case of have to.

After they had gone we wondered what their little game was, whether it was merely a case of flirtation or whether they were looking for converts to their religion. Billy put the question to me and I told him he could search me; I didn't know. Anyway, neither of us wanted to get married just then, so after the girls left us we troubled our heads no more about them.

We stopped in Ogden, Utah, a few days, and then beat our way to Virginia City, Nevada, where we did some laboring work at the old Bonanza mines. Neither of us were miners, although we had prospected some without results. We found the miners to be a good-hearted set of fellows and liked to be among them. Grub and booze could be had for the asking in Virginia City when we were broke, but handouts were more plentiful than work. Not many strangers wander to Virginia City these days, for the town is off the main line and no bums visit it. It is on the decay order. Its streets are in ruins, ditto the sidewalks and houses, and over the whole place there is a musty odor. It is away high up in the air about eight thousand feet above sea level and the wealth that once was brought up from several thousand feet below the surface amounted to billions, not millions of dollars. Today the big mill houses still stand in their usual place in good order but little mining is done there.

Some of the big plants, such as the Ophir, Savage, Norcross and Hale, Consolidated Virginia and Best & Belcher are still there, but where there were a thousand miners working before there are not ten working today. The place is strictly on the bum, just like me and my little pardner. Once there were forty or fifty thousand people in Virginia City, but today there are not five thousand, or anyways near that number and the ruins and scenes of desolation make a fellow feel sad. The old International Hotel where the nobs used to stop and spent a fortune every day, is now run by a Chinaman at a cheap rate. There is plenty of fine scenery around Virginia City, however, and plenty of Piute Indians, but the Piutes don't enhance the scenery any. They are a dirty crowd and sit around on decaying lumber piles and hillsides within the town, playing cards and other gambling games. The miners are mostly Cornishmen, Englishmen from Cornwall, England, and as Billy is English he took to them very readily.

Carson was our next stopping place and we found it to be a nice little town. It isn't far from Virginia City and is the capital of Nevada. It contains a few thousand people, lots of tall poplar trees which stand along the streets, sage-brush and alkali covered hills and plains, a large stone railroad roundhouse, the State Capitol building (which is enclosed in a park several acres in extent), a U. S. mint and that's about all. No work to speak of is going on around there and as Billy and me could not get anything to do we lived on hand-outs mostly. One evening we saw a hen wandering about rather aimlessly, so to put her out of misery we caught her, wrung her neck and took her out of town where we roasted her over a slow fire. We rubbed her while she was cooking with a little sage to make us think of Christmas and devoured her by starlight. Bill said she reminded him of home and felt kind of blue for a few moments. But he munched away and soon cheered up.

It may be the proper thing here to give a short description of Billy.

Billy was a little fellow, about five foot two, and was a Britisher, a native of the city of York, in Yorkshire, after which New York is named. He was what you might call a strawberry blonde, for he had light hair and a moustache that was halfway between golden and red. It wasn't one of your straggly kind of moustaches with big hairs sticking out all over it, but small, neat and compact with just the cutest little turned up spit-curls at each end of it you ever saw. Maybe Billy wasn't proud of that moustache! He was dead stuck on it and was nearly always fussing with it and fondling it. Quite often he trimmed it with the aid of a little looking glass which he carried in his kit. Whenever the kit was unrolled Billy got the glass and admired himself with it. And yet I can't say the little cuss was vain, for whenever he met females he seemed indifferent to their charms and looked another way. His eyes were blue and his hands and feet small. Taken all together he wasn't a bad looking chap. Billy had some folks in the old country, a mother and two sisters but no father or brothers, and they lived in old York. Billy was born and raised in York and at a very early age was apprenticed to a harness-maker. His folks probably thought that the sooner he got out and rustled the better for himself and all concerned. Apprentices don't get much in old England, Billy told me, and have to serve long years at their trade before they can become a journeyman. Billy worked seven or eight years for his clothes and board and an occasional ha-'penny with which he bought a meat pie or lollipops.