Drifted in :: :: University of Virginia Library

It's hard to be wandering mile on mile,
And keep the distances out of your style;
To bar the world from an interference
Along of your personal appearance;
To keep from becoming, day by day,
A live cyclometer, one might say,
And storing the thousands of miles away.
And I have been over land enough,
Wooded and prairied and smooth and rough,
To make a world of itself; though I
Should hope for a somewhat clearer sky,
And less of hurly-burly and sin:
Another world from the kind we're in.

No! I couldn't tell you the roads I've travelled,
Mudded, and sanded, and ironed, and gravelled,
Creeping along by the hedge's side,
Or climbing the trains and cribbing a ride,
Or packing myself 'mongst boxes and jars,
Or stringing a hammock under the cars,
And other methods of beating my way
That tramps discover from day to day—
Since once . . . in a sweet and dainty dwelling . . .
There happened something that wouldn't bear telling,
For many a moon—though now I may
Tell it before I am through today.
But it made me a hater of homes, you see,
Although not quite of a low degree,
And I said, “I'm a tramp and shall always be.”

'Twas Christmas morning, some years ago,
For a year I had wandered to and fro;

I was down on my luck that day; and so
Of course sweet Memory took a start,
And gave me an extra stab in the heart,
And set me to thinking, again and again,
Of “things that might,” but could not “have been.”
And just as I crawled out, helter-skelter,
From the stack-hotel that gave me shelter,
I heard in the morning bright and fair,
Some bells that rang through the distant air;
And things couldn't have been more handy, you see,
To bring my homelessness home to me;
And I wondered how long a soul could last,
And be alone; and my heart quick passed
Back to that Christmas I found my wife
Kissing a stranger—then wrenched my life
Away from her own; and, leaving, swore
Never again to pass that door.

While thinking of all these things, and more,
I saw three horses beside the road,
With never harness or collar or load;
And two of them seemed to be talking together,
There in that spring-like winter weather,
As if each one to the other would say,
“What is there for us in this Christmas day?”
And one of them 'neath a tree alone,
As if to the others he was not known,
Seemed to be having some thoughts of his own.
Now fodder was terribly scarce and dear,
And horses cheaper than cats, that year;
And each of their necks bore a placard, which read,

“Whoever will see that this horse is fed
Three times per day, can have him free.”

And the odd horse walked up nearer to me,
As if to give me a chance to con
The curious motto that he had on,
And something or other in his way
Brought back a horse that we lost one day
When I was a boy, and had to cry;
And something or other in his eye
Made me suspect that perhaps the scamp
Was really born to become a tramp;
And also it seemed as if he'd been waiting
For me to come; and without debating
If I was able a horse to keep,
I felt in my pockets long and deep,
And found some twine; and slipped it round
The horse's nose; and with a bound,
Was on his back; and we skipped away
Through the brightening dawn of that Christmas day.
The horse seemed willing and glad to go;
And appeared from the very first to know
That he was my big though humble brother,
And we were company for each other.
And I'd have worked my fingers to bone,
Before again I'd have traveled alone.

Now I am a tramp that never steals,
From man or horse, and he had three meals
Whether I did or not; and often
I fancied I saw his black eyes soften
And maybe a bit with tear-drops dim,
While he munched the food that I earned for him.
(But that was imagination, I guess;
For I never noticed him eat the less.)
And after awhile it happened that he
Could earn a dinner sometimes for me;
And once, when feeling of work a lack,
I hired for a week a license and hack,
From a man whose horse had been driven dead,
And I laid up a dollar or two ahead.
But Nicholas (my nag's name, because
Of the Christmas present he really was)
Like a true tramp grew sad of face,
At living too long in a single place.
And so, through different roads and weather,
We started off, once more, together.

And several times the fellow showed
That he had blood that could keep the road
From seeing much more than his shadow; and once
A sheriff, a stupid, ambitious dunce,
Got it put into his shallow head
That I was a horse-thief, and found, as I sped,
That I was a racing-man instead,
And could go along my chosen route,
Faster than he could ride or shoot.
And once, in a half-hour brilliant and brief,
I helped a constable catch a thief.
So, Nicholas came at last to be
Almost everything to me;

And I thought, with a feeling half-inhuman,
“A horse is faithfuller than a woman.”

Well, two or three Christmasses passed away,
And finally one found us astray
In Southern mountains; whose peaks of blue
Were smiling and scowling the whole week through
And sudden we heard a rumbling sound;
And halting a minute, and looking around,
I saw in the distance, coming fast,
A coach and six horses; and they swept past
With tourists chatting in loud shrill speech,
Of the Christmas dinner they soon should reach;
When a broken strap set their leaders a-fright,
And soon the six, with a whirlwind's might,
Were coursing the mountain's rough-roaded side,
With dropped reins fluttering far and wide;
For the driver was dazed and stupefied.
While loud shrieks born of sudden fears,
Came back in a crowd to my startled ears.

Then I said to Nicholas, “We will see
What mettle there is in you and me.”
And off in a moment's time we flew,
Chasing the flying wreck! and drew
Nearer and nearer; though 'twas a race
In which we had started second place.
Swift as a bullet my good horse made
His course past the swinging cavalcade,
That glutted the roadbed here and there,
With hardly the width of a horse to spare;
And on we rushed, and the lead we sought;
Till at last a horse's bridle I caught,

And, as like a storm we onward strode,
I kept the whole of them in the road.
And coming to where a hill upbore
For full the half of a mile or more,
They tired and halted, as horses will,
And soon I had soothed them, and made them still.

As out of the coach the passengers climbed,
Their thanks and praise in my hearing chimed;
But I saw only two: and one was the man
From whom my wanderings began
On that fatal Christmas; the other was she—
The wife who had made a tramp of me.

I glared at them both with fierce ungrace;
But my wife spoke up with laughing face—
How could she, I thought!—“So we've found you at last
Or you have us—and we'll hold you fast,
After hunting and hunting and hunting for you
Some eight or ten times the country through,
'Mid all of the heats and colds and damps,
And nearly ourselves becoming tramps.
This if you please is my brother here
Come back from India, with a mere
Eighty or ninety thousand a year,—
A brother I can't afford to lose;
I shall kiss him, sir, just as much as I choose,
And he shall me, to his heart's content,
And should, if he wasn't worth a cent.
I like your horse's looks and ways:
He shall be my own for the rest of his days.
And you—you good-for-nothing fine
Rough sweet dear cross old husband of mine,

Turn over another leaf in life:
Shake hands with your brother and kiss your wife.”

Now, Nicholas has no use for me,
But follows her round, meek as can be;
And more things happen, from day to day,
Which lead me again and again to say,
Of God's strange creatures—great and small—
“A woman's faithfullest of them all.”

During the early part of the nineties, many farmers reluctantly offered to give away horses to any one who would take good care of them, as their keeping through the winter would cost more than they were worth. Horses decked with labels similar to the one above mentioned were seen along highways in several of the Western States