Beggars of Life by Jim Tully Page A

Somethin’ just kept sayin’ to me, ‘Old boy, you lay low. You might stick your foot in a trap.’ I kept quiet, and could hear the bird talkin’ to itself in the nest, for birds dream just like people.
    â€œFinally, a guy came walkin’ along the road alone. I watched him walk all around the house and barn. You could of sold me for a dime, for I was so scared I darn near shivered myself out of the tree. The man walked back in the front yard again, and stood under the tree for a long time, and I kept worryin’ about the bird, but she just talked low to her eggs. The fellow walked down the road, and I was about to climb from the tree and beat it the other way, when I’ll be danged if he didn’t walk back again.
    â€œBeing about all in, I dozed off, and dreamt I was a long ways from the Ref, and the rotten grub, and the snitches, and mean guards. I started to fall and woke up and scared the bird out of her nest, and there was the guy standin’ out in the road. I made up my mind that if he left again I’d beat it out of the tree, for if I got caught up there in daylight I’d have to stay all day. He beat it down the road again, and I beat it and run around the house and back of the barn. I lay there behind a big manure pile to get my bearin’s. Pretty soon I heard a rig drive in the barnyard and stop, and I dug a hole in the manure pile just like we did in that straw last night. The ammonia darn near choked me. The Sheriff and his deputy stood right near the manure pile, and I could hear him say, ‘That kid hain’t gone very far, surely. I’ve got a hunch he’s right around the barn here.’
    â€œâ€˜Yeah,’ the other man said, ‘he’s liable to be hotfootin’ it ten miles from here by now.’
    â€œâ€˜Maybe so. Them little devils are harder to ketch than the old birds,’ I heard the Sheriff say.
    â€œI couldn’t stand the ammonia in the manure any more, so I fixed a hole big enough to get my face out so’s I could breathe. I kept thinkin’ what a boob I was to trust that farmer, but then, I thought, ‘I was so darn hungry I had to take a chance on somebody, and if they’d of caught me stealin’ they’d of soaked me a few years more.’ I got dopey, and must of slept a couple of hours. When I woke, I didn’t know whether the guys were there or not, but I thought, ‘The devil with ’em,’ and beat it right across the fields till I came to a haystack where I flopped till about noon the next day. I woke up so hungry my belly thought my throat was cut—so I started to walk again. When I saw a guy a little ways off hoein’ corn, I made up my mind I’d give him a chance to git fifteen bucks for turnin’ me over to the cops. I beat it over to him.
    â€œI felt tickled when I saw his face, for I could tell he wasn’t a farmer, but an old hobo booze-hound. He was jist gettin’ over a black eye, and his nose was crooked, an’ his little finger was cut off. I could tell he was a bum all right, so I walked right up and told him my story, and how I was hungrier than a tramp in Texas. I kin see the old guy laughin’ yet, when he said, ‘No—Gawd—you ain’t that hungry.’
    â€œThe tramp told me he heard everybody talkin’ how I had done the farmer out of the fifteen bucks. He said, ‘Listen, kid, I’ll go in an’ eat. They don’t lets me eat in the house, but I’m glad of it now. You wait here an’ I’ll bring you a lot of grub an’ a can of java. Then you kin beat it back to that haystack an’ lay low till night, an’ I’ll fetch a lot more grub an’ java over there when it’s dark. I’ll have a day’s pay comin’ an’ I’ll bum the apple knocker for a buck and give it to you.’
    â€œI flopped in a fence corner till he came back.
    â€œThe old guy brought