Dandi Daley Mackall - Rudy Rides the Rails: A Depression Era Story

Rudy Rides the Rails

A DEPRESSION ERA STORY

BY D ANDI D ALEY M ACKALL
ILLUSTRATED BY C HRIS E LLISON

To Rambling Rudy, a gentleman hobo who rode the rails during the Great Depression,
was crowned King of the Hoboes in 1986, and caught the Westbound in 2004.

DANDI

In memory of my great grandmother Maggie Worsham,
who always responded with kindness to the hoboes that knocked on her door.

CHRIS

Text Copyright 2007 Dandi Daley Mackall
Illustration Copyright 2007 Chris Ellison

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles.
All inquiries should be addressed to:

Sleeping Bear Press

315 E. Eisenhower Pkwy., Suite 200
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
www.sleepingbearpress.com

Sleeping Bear Press is an imprint of Gale.

Printed and bound in China.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mackall, Dandi Daley.
Rudy rides the rails : a Depression era story / by Dandi Daley
Mackall ; illustrated by Chris Ellison.
p. cm.
Summary: In 1932, during the Depression in Ohio, thirteen-year-old Rudy, determined to help his family weather the hard times, hops a train going west to California and experiences the hobo life.
ISBN 10: 1-58536-286-7
ISBN 13: 978-1-58536-286-8
[1. TrampsFiction. 2. Railroads trainsFiction. 3. Depressions
1929Fiction.] I. Ellison, Chris, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.M1905Rud 2007
[Fic]dc222006023431

A UTHORS N OTE

In 1929, the end of the Roaring Twenties, many Americans believed they had good reason to sing and dance. Farmers had been producing more and more crops, and industry sprouted factories throughout the United States.

But there were problems, too. Prices of farm products began to drop. Dust storms blackened skies from Texas to the Dakotas, and as far east as Washington, D.C. People stopped buying goods that the increasing number of factories produced. Companies went out of business and couldnt pay their loans.

On Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed, and banks ran out of money. Millionaires lost millions. Average Americans lost everything they had. It was Americas worst crisis since the Civil War and became known as the Great Depression. In Ohio, half of the workers in Cleveland lost jobs, 60% in Akron, and 80% in Toledo.

A quarter of a million teenagers left their homes to ride the rails as hoboes, in search of a better life. They were met with the same mixed reactions as our twenty-first-century homelessridicule and cruelty, along with the understanding and kindness of strangers.

My dad grew up close to the railroad tracks in Hamilton, Missouri. During the Depression, hoboes would stop and ask for a bite to eat. My grandmother always gave them something and wondered how they knew to stop at her houseuntil she found the smiling cat carved into the big oak on the front lawn.

I met the real Ramblin Rudy, Rudy Phillips, in 2000. My story is a work of fiction, but I hope it captures Rudys spirit and the spirit of American adventure lived by young Rudy and so many others during the Great Depression.

1932 was a time when America forgot how to smile. Drought turned the middle of the nation into the Dustbowl. Corn and wheat prices fell so low that farmers left their crops in the field to rot. Banks ran out of money, and schools closed their doors. Fathers lost their jobs, and mothers had no food to put on the table for hungry children.

Rudy Phillips believed the whole world had changed.

And nobody had changed more than Rudys pa.

Rudy tried to see around the line of men and boys winding ahead of him, clear to the boarded-up gate of the rubber plant. Everybody had hit on hard times.

Up ahead, people drifted out of line as word filtered down: Nobodys hiring today.

Rudy shuffled home through the snow, wishing he had more than cardboard soles in his shoes. Pa was sitting on the porch step, looking as if all the hope had drained out of his bones. Rudy could remember when the front porch had been filled with Mas singing and Pas banjo playing. But when Pa lost his job, the music got lost, too.

You gotta look out for you and yours, and nobody else. Thats what Pa taught Rudy. But now Pa couldnt even take care of his own. Ma sneaked out to stand in the relief line for cold beans and moldy cheese, while Rudys little sisters waited at soup kitchen and mission back doors. Pa pretended not to know.

In the distance, Rudy heard the lonesome whistle of a train. Hundreds of teens no older than Rudy had hopped the B&O line out of Akron, Ohio, bound for lumbering forests in the north or fields ripe for harvesting to the west and south. They rode the rails to as far off as California, where orange trees grew in every yard and dreams had a chance of coming true.

Im going West, Rudy announced. When his pa didnt answer, Rudy pressed on. Ill find work and send money home.

Ma cried and tried to talk him out of it. When she couldnt, she tied up a bundle, with a chunk of cheese, a loaf end of bread, and all she had, $2.10. Then she kissed her son goodbye. Rudy figured that even if he didnt strike it rich in California, thered be one less mouth to feed.

Rudy crouched in the weeds by the railroad yards. An outbound jerked onto the tracks like an iron snake, smoke puffing from its nostrils. A sliver of moonlight lit an open boxcar. Rudy jumped and grasped the grab iron to pull himself up. Then he rolled onto the boxcar floor. The whistle howled, and Rudy Phillips was on his way.

Inside the boxcar it was black as coal and twice as dusty. The floorboards shook like chattering teeth and smelled like sour-dough gone bad. But as Rudy watched the yards grow smaller and smaller, he knew Cali was getting closer and closer.

Something stirred behind him. Rudy imagined rats the size of Ohio. He wheeled around to see a small circle of glowing red fire. Rudy wanted to jump from the train, but it swayed and bucked, and he couldnt stand up.

Rudy stared into the blackness until two figures took shape. One was bone thin and so tall he had to bend over. Names Fishbones, the man said. This heres Boxcar Betty. Rudy saw now that the glowing circle was the tip of the old womans cigar. She laughed, and Rudy thought of the witchs cackle in