In order to enable me to look after all these various duties two teams were at my disposal, one a team of heavy draft-horses, the other a light driving team for a democrat. For rounding up the cattle I had a well-trained saddle-horse besides.
My wages were the same as those of the harvest-crews, except that on rainy days and Sundays, when all the other men lost their time, I was paid at the flat rate of two dollars a day. I had bettered myself, quite apart from the fact that with rare exceptions -- as, for instance, when heavy barrels of lubricating oil had to be unloaded -- my work was brain-work rather than physical labour. The drives, though sometimes long and tiresome, were on the whole to my liking. I had been rather a horseman in Europe, and I took readily to handling my bronchos. I had no "boss" except Mr. Nelson, who was invariably kind and courteous; I came into close contact with many of the men, of whom there were now eight or nine hundred employed.
Again all nationalities except the Latin ones were represented; all mingled freely except the Swedes. Swedes are clannish; they kept to themselves, slept -- by connIvance of the superintendent, himself of Swedish descent, in the haylofts of the barns, played their own, innocent games -- horse-shoe quoits -- and worked with the steadiness peculiar to their race.
All the other hands employed at headquarters lodged at the bunk-house, a huge, barnlike structure in the extreme south-east corner of the yard. The upper floor of this building was the dormitory. The beds or bunks were roughly put up of lumber; they had no mattresses but were filled with straw; the straw was never renewed, and consequently it swarmed with vermin. That was the one unpardonable feature in the accommodation provided. Two heavy blankets of wool shot with cotton were assigned to every bunk. When I first saw this upper floor where a hundred men were crowded together, I thought of the stifling lack of fresh air which must prevail there overnight. But, strange to say, only one or two of the

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hundreds of men with whom I came into touch ever objected to this accommodation. The ground-floor of the bunk-house was a large hall provided with long tables and wooden benches. Here the men assembled on rainy days.
As for myself, it was not only my right but my duty to sleep in the store-house whenever I was at headquarters for the night. There was a bunk; but I never used it; I preferred to bed myself down on the floor. Occasionally it happened that provisions or men had to be taken to that northernmost outpost of the farm which was, twenty-six miles from headquarters and which was now opened at last. When I went there, I had to stop over at an intermediate camp, not on my own account, but on account of the horses, especially when I was driving a wagon with the heavy team. My meals I took at whatever camp I could make in time; I did not mind if I had to skip one now and then.
Ivan slept -- by my connIvance -- in the second storehouse which I have already mentioned.
A specimen or two of my encounters with such of the men as obtruded themselves on my attention will be necessary.
One day when I had gone to town in the morning, I picked up two men whom Mr. Nelson had hired. There was the usual hobo-camp at the outskirts of the village, occupied by those who were still holding out for higher wages or who had left some other farm and were going idle till their money was spent. It was here that the two men boarded my wagon.
One was a German of slight proportions, a mere boy; the other a middle-aged American of burly build. Both were taciturn; both seemed to be at outs with their fate. As it happened, they were to be the ones who roused my interest in the great mass of hobos.
There was no immediate vacancy for them in the crews at headquarters; Mr. Nelson put them to splitting wood.
In the evening the German kept lingering in the neighbourhood of the store-house; when he saw me closing the

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slide-doors on the east side, where the loading platform was, he spoke to me.
"Can I sleep in there?" he asked.
"I'm sorry," I replied, "it's against my orders."
"The bookkeeper gone?"
"Yes," I said, "he has his rooms in the cook-house. Want to see him?"
"I want to quit," he said.
I looked at him. "You came only this morning. What's wrong?"
"I'm not going to sleep in that bunk-house," he said vehemently.
I could understand that and felt instant pity. Most of the men who were seized with the sudden desire to leave used the "grub" for their pretext. The food was good; I had no sympathy with them, though I came to view even these men differently. This boy objected to the one objectionable thing.
Suddenly he sat down on the platform and buried his face in his hands. I was shocked and frightened.
"Don't do that," I said. "I'll see what I can do for you. I can't put you up here, against definite orders. But there is the driving-stable with a good hayloft above. I have no orders regarding it; I'll show you how to get up there if you will wait till I have locked up."
He did not stir.
I bent down and laid my hand on his shoulder; he was shaken by sobs; in an impulse of pity I sat down beside him. "Is there anything I could help you in?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"Are you new in this country?"
Again he shook his head.
"I did not think so," I said, "from your English."
"I can't stay," he cried out. "I can't stay!"
"Why not? Is the work too hard?"
"No," he said. His whole body began to shake with sobs. "My poor mother!" he cried out.

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his trousers up. "You'll have to keep it if you want to keep me."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "What do you want it for?"
"To eat," he said with another snort.
I stood aghast. "Did you not get in time for breakfast?"
"Oh, breakfast!" he fairly shouted. "I don't want none of your beastly feed. I want the garbage."
"You don't mean to say that you prefer it?" I asked, half disgusted, half horrified.
"You don't mean to say," he mocked my voice. "Yes, sir. I do mean to say. I've gone without dinner, and I've gone without supper. If I've got to go without breakfast, too, I'll quit."
"Well, what on earth made you that way?" I asked.
"What on earth, eh?" he mocked again. "Tastes better, that's what. More flavour to it. I can't digest the feed you serve."
With that he walked off. He left that day.
Both these incidents may seem funny to some, disgusting to others; but I had gone through too many things myself in the vicissitudes of my life to let it go at that. Nor did they remain isolated happenings, now that my "job" brought me into constant contact with the men and that as one who stood apart from the crews. They spoke to me as being one of the lesser members of the administration. More than once, when I was taking newly-hired men out to some distant camp -- especially to that northernmost outpost of the farm which was some thirty miles from the nearest town -- did one or two of them refuse to go on when they discovered that they were being taken far away from the beaten trail. They simply dropped off the wagon and started back, walking.
"Where're we going?" was invariably their first question when they were alone with me on the road. When I told them, they swore or grumbled at the distance; still most of them went on, hoping, that when the spirit moved

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them to leave, they would find some conveyance to snatch a ride on, if only for part of the way.
As the season advanced, two measures were taken to prevent them from lightly throwing up the work; for when the harvest on the smaller farms was finished, the supply of this floating labour gave out: the wave of hobodom struck farther north, towards the Canadian border where crops were noticeably later, even within an easy day's drive from headquarters; the camp, for instance, on that outpost of Mr. Mackenzie's holdings had not been opened at all till Ivan and I had transferred to headquarters. It was I who drove the cook and the first provisions over, followed by a long string of fifteen binders and as many wagons, with a hundred draft-horses or so behind.
One of the measures to prevent, or at least to impede the drifting away of the men, at a time when they were most urgently needed for threshing, consisted in strict orders issued to the foremen to put only the most reliable hands on the wagons and grain-tanks as teamsters; these in turn, as indeed myself, received strict orders never to give anybody a ride unless authorized by a foreman or the superintendent to do so. Accordingly those among the Swedes who were homesteaders were picked out for hauling the grain when threshing started. To them the threat of instant dismissal in case of disobedience held terrors.
As for myself, one day Mr. Nelson became emphatic about this order, reiterating that it was meant literally; for I had been seen returning from one of the northern camps with a passenger. This had been an independent farmer who, on a rainy day, was walking to town. I explained this to Mr. Nelson, adding that surely I was to use my judgment in such a case; it could not be the intention to antagonize the permanently settled population.
Mr. Nelson smiled. "Just take the order quite literally. If a foreman is around or I, ask. But don't take anybody without being authorized to do so. As for the small farmer, we do not intend to curry favour with him."
Mr. Nelson actually used the word "we". To me this

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seemed utter autocracy, besides being a narrow-minded policy, as "we" were shortly to find out when the herd of cattle kept on the farm stampeded and broke through the fence; it could not be located for several weeks because every "small" farmer in the neighbourhood did his best to cover the tracks; to find them involved the management in no end of trouble and expense.
As it happened, I had an opportunity to express my opinion in a practical way. A day or two after, when I was driving along a muddy road, I saw young Mr. Mackenzie's car lying on the grassy slope of a cross-road, not far from where it joined the trail which I was following myself. As luck would have it, I was driving the light broncho-team hitched to the democrat, and they were capable of considerable speed.
As soon as Mr. Mackenzie saw me coming, he started on a run for the crossing, leaving his car.
I touched my horses with the whip, and they responded. When I shot past the crossing, Mr. Mackenzie began to shout and to wave his arms. As soon as I had put a hundred yards or so between him and myself, I pulled my horses up short.
Then I turned and called back. "Strict orders from Mr. Nelson. Nobody to get a ride without permission from him or a foreman!" And I drove on, leaving him to tramp home over four or five miles of muddy road.
In the evening he came over to the store, accompanied by Mr. Nelson.
"Nelson," he said, "better tell this man to give me a ride when I ask for it. Make it a standing order, will you?"
I grinned; we all three burst out laughing.
The other measure was of a more serious character.
Everybody who was newly hired was now required to sign an agreement whereby he promised that he would not leave before it was Mr. Mackenzie's pleasure to dismiss him.
I understand that, the men being hired by the day, at

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day wages, and no definite term being set to end the agreement, nor any definite remuneration being agreed upon -- the phrase used was at "current wages" -- this agreement was void in law. I know it worked hardship on many and raised a good deal of bad blood. The men, as most men do, signed blindly, some being unable to read, others not caring to go to the trouble. The few who refused to sign were left free to walk back to town -- a distance of five miles -- or otherwise to take themselves off the premises in any way they pleased.
The way this measure worked out was instructive. As many men left their work as before; for there is always, in the hobo, the desire to move on. When they came to the office, they were refused their cheques; the foremen had already refused them their time-slips. Some took it meekly and went back to work. Some insisted on leaving and were told to come back for their wages when the work was completed; if the impulse to leave was strong enough and the sum owing to them not too large, they simply threw up their wages, for I am sure that nobody returned for them. Some, lastly, got into a temper, demanded to see Mr. Mackenzie, and threatened when he came -- as he invariably did -- with legal proceedings.
"Go to law, if you want to," Mr. Mackenzie told them. "I doubt whether you can find a lawyer to take your case. If you succeed, all the worse for you. I'll fight you up to the supreme court; whatever you may have coming will disappear in fees and costs, and more besides. If you'll take my advice, you will go back to work and wait till I have finished. There will be something coming to you, then."
Being stationed in the store-house, when I was not out driving, I saw a good deal of this; for I also had a small desk in the office itself.
Some incidents gave me a good deal to think about, for I had taken a great liking to the young owner. I saw his side, of course. It was in the interests of the country, and even of mankind at large, that crops like his should be

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safely garnered. Lack of labour might prevent this from being accomplished. The men were unreasonable, there was no doubt about that. But I had learned, by that time, that at least nine-tenths of all our behaviour is unreasonable. And I could not help pitying them; I felt sympathy even with their impotent rage, for I knew how the feeling of impotence hurts. What I saw and heard made my heart sore for the underlying conditions that have created hobodom. There is, in most cases, first the inability to secure steady work at any one place; partial or seasonal employment is to blame for that; thus arises, in the individual, an inability to stay with the work; the men have to move sooner or later; they want to choose their own time; and this desire becomes at last a mania for which they can no longer be held responsible. Where hobodom has not been created in this manner, it is a case of congenital disposition. At any rate, as things were, it was one of the conditions of human life; to ignore it and not to make allowance for it, seemed cruelly callous to me.
Slowly my liking for Mr. Mackenzie faded; I found myself slipping into an attitude of animosity.
Then a case came up which relieved me, at least partly, of this gnawing discontent with the order of things. I saw that Mr. Mackenzie tempered a cruel policy with discriminating humanity.
A man had left his camp, asked for his cheque, and was refused. He demanded to see Mr. Mackenzie, saying he had to catch a morning train to the east. Unfortunately Mr. Mackenzie was out in the Fields, in his car, and could not be reached. The man, a quiet, unassuming fellow, walked restlessly up and down while waiting.
As soon as Mr. Mackenzie returned, he came over. Two or three others were waiting for him by this time.
"Well, what is it?" he asked.
"I am a married man," the first of those waiting said in substance. "I have a family, and I received a letter last night telling me that my wife and two children are

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down with typhoid. I've got to get home. I have missed to-day's train; but I can walk it to Walloh and catch a night-train. I must have my wages."
"How much have you coming?"
The bookkeeper answered for the man.
"Well," said Mr. Mackenzie, "I can't pay you your wages. I have made a rule; I have to live up to it. But I shall fix you up somehow. Where do you live?"
"Near Fergus Falls, Minnesota," the man replied.
Mr. Mackenzie studied a time-table. "You can make the night-train from Barnesville," he said at last; "that is thirty miles from here. Have your dinner first; after that I shall take you over in my car. As for money, I shall loan you a hundred dollars in cash. You leave your address with the bookkeeper, and we shall send you the balance by mail when the season is over. Will that fix you up?"
"Yes," said the man, "thanks."
The other two found the young owner inexorable.
I could not excuse the cruel condition; but I could at least view Mr. Mackenzie less harshly than I had done before. Much of our suffering is inflicted by thoughtlessness. Lack of humanity is lack of thought, insight, imagination.
It was at this time that the old feeling of wonder took hold of me again; I marvelled at the plan of my life.
Had I gone through those things which I had endured and suffered myself -- on that tramp from New York to Indiana -- in preparation for what I was witnessing now? Doubtlessly my own, direct suffering, little as it amounted to, had prepared me for the vicarious suffering of the present. Doubtlessly I should -- as others did -- have shrugged my shoulders at the agony of the German boy; I should have turned in disgust from the "garbage-eater". Doubtlessly I should have looked with the Jewish bookkeeper's distant and hostile disdain upon this flood of questionable humanity, had not my own experience taught me a deeper sympathy. I had at that time no thought for

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myself; I had nothing to worry about for the future; I felt that my great idea, my revelation of only a few weeks ago, secured me, insured me against all threats of an economic nature which the invaded continent might hold. As far as I personally was concerned, I could step out of this condition of hobodom whenever I chose to. But what difference did that make? It did not change one single fact in the cruel conditions which surrounded me.
And then, somehow, I received a hint of what was going on at the bunk-house at night and on rainy days.
I knew, of course, that the big hall on the ground-floor was the scene of the recreations of the hobos. For me there lay a certain, glamour over that hall -- that kind of fascination, I suppose, which in former years, in the Quartier Latin of Paris, had lured me on occasional adventurous trips into the "dives" of the criminal underworld.
All these men were harmless enough, taken singly. They were men like you and myself, men with personal worries and sorrows, likings and idiosyncrasies; above all weak and suffering men who appealed to my human sympathies. So far I had steered clear of them in the mass. I knew that Mr. Nelson, the superintendent, a quiet, coolly courageous man, did not like to interfere with them, there. Sometimes it was whispered that drinking was going on in the hall; and though it was strictly against the rules to bring liquor in any form into the camp, so that, if it was done, in violation of the rules, it became Nelson's duty to do something about it, I could see a look of annoyance cross his face when he was informed of the fact. He would have preferred not to know about it, to let them get drunk and sleep it off the next day. It was a dangerous task to investigate and to seize the whisky. Once, when the report came that the men were far gone in drink and that an ugly mood was prevailing, he held a brief conference with Mr. Mackenzie, and the two went together. Unflinching courage I found to be the most redeeming feature of the young millionaire-owner.
There was no need for me to go near the place. No

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duty of mine led me there. But I felt that my knowledge of this particular brand of humanity was incomplete till I had seen it in its orgies.
At last, one evening, after a sudden thunderstorm which had brought the work in the Fields to a stop in the early afternoon, I went.
It was after supper; the hour was late; I could not quit work at the usual time. This was especially true on rainy days because then we always had a rush on both office and store; everybody drew a cheque on account; everybody bought what he thought he needed. So night had set in when I reached the hall of the bunk-house.
To this very day I see the scene when I close my eyes.
Innumerable more or less smoky lanterns stood on a long table placed in the centre of the huge barn-hall. The rest of its spaces were in darkness; for the table was surrounded by a dense crowd of excited onlookers whose dim but gigantic shadows checkered and moved over the slanting beams, the walls, and the ceiling of the structure. The atmosphere reeked with the smells of coal-oil, soot, and whisky-exhalations.
When I penetrated the surrounding wall of humanity, edging in at the upper end, near the top of the table, so as to get a look at the game, I was struck by the feeling of tension which prevailed.
To me a game had always been a game -- a give-and-take, in which a loss had to be borne with the same equanimity -- at least in appearance -- as that with which you rake in a gain. But these twenty-odd men who were seated on the wooden benches around the table played for what to them were fortunes. Their stakes were the earnings of weeks and months of unremitting labour; to some a gain might mean comparative ease and leisure during the coming winter; a loss, slavery in a sweat-shop of the middle west. Winnings were taken with a grim sort of satisfaction; losses, with an obscene curse; sometimes with a vicious word against the winner.
The game was poker, of course; with the bets running

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high -- "the sky was the limit". That is the most deplorable form of the game because it allows the skilful "bluffer" to "squeeze out" an unfortunate antagonist whose holdings have run below his own. It was on that score that the brawls arose; for, as soon as you passed, unable to follow up the expert "pyramiding" of the bets, you lost the right to demand a "show-down".
I saw at once that the game was dominated by a young engineer from St. Paul, sent out by the Tractor Company to supervise the working of the new engines used for steam-plowing and threshing. Engineers and separator men could command as much as ten dollars a day during the high-pressure of the work. But this young fellow was engaged for three months at a flat rate of six dollars a day, all found, rain or shine. His earnings during the season may not have exceeded those of any other engineer -- there were eight on the farm; but his bragging certainly did. The fact that he went on drawing his money when rainy weather threw everybody else out of employment, except the low-paid Swedes who never appeared here anyway, put him in his own estimation on a sort of pedestal where he glorified himself.
Once, when he came to the store for a new suit of overalls, he spoke in the most patronizing way to me; and though I coolly discouraged his confidential talk, he rambled on for a quarter of an hour or so, sitting on an up-tilted box and keeping me from attending to my work.
"Money piles up pretty fast," he said, "when it keeps coming in at the rate of six dollars a day whether you work or not. Besides, I have a whole crowd here working for me. They can't keep their money; it burns in their pockets. They come and beg for a game. They know, or if they don't, they should know that, when I sit down in a game, I take the money and nobody else. Oh boy, when I get back to the Twin Cities, won't I have a sweet old time with the girls? I'll say I will."
This man who had nothing to recommend him except his never-failing nerve, sat in the centre on one side of the

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table. On either hand he had a lantern, in front of him a half-empty bottle. At his right a long folding-knife which locked in the handle, at left a pile of bills, cheques, and IOU's. His voice, eliminated the bedlam of shouts and laughter.
There were others who had made large winnings; they, too, were noisy.
But most of the gamblers sat tense and silent, except for an occasional muttered curse or a whispered accusation. What I could not understand was that they did not unite to down the bully in their midst. But the prevailing spirit seemed rather to narrow the circle by "squeezing" more and more of the less able or less fortunate players out, and then, when only two or three players were left, to spar for position and opportunity, and finally to stake everything on one bold throw.
To me the game became a symbol of much that is horrible in modern life.
Here was a handful of the drifting population of God's earth; here were men who owned nothing in the world beyond what they carried about and what might be waiting for them as a balance on the books of the farm. They threw down what they had and mortgaged their future into the bargain by giving IOU's and orders on wages not yet earned. They were virtually selling themselves into slavery. For what? For the thrilling and gripping excitement of a moment; and then maybe in the vain hope of recouping themselves by hanging on; and in a game in which nothing counted in the long-run except nerve.
I watched the engineer. He took his cards up as they fell, hiding the first in the hollow palm of his hand and laying those which followed on top of the first, slowly and deliberately; he never looked at his cards again, never spread his hand out; he hardly ever discarded to draw a new supplement. It hardly mattered to him what his hand might hold. He waited for the first bet; he hardly ever "passed", never accepted a bet as offered. Swiftly

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he pyramided, in his shrill, tense, ironic voice which stung his opponent like an insult and which seemed to have the power of depriving his victims of their cooler reason. He sat like a hawk, apparently nonchalant, in reality with every muscle taut; his whole attitude one of studied contempt.
I was to have an illustration of the fact that even chance counted for little or nothing in the game as it was played.
Where I stood, a commotion arose among the onlookers. A broad-shouldered giant of a man sat right in front of me. When my eye followed the excited looks of my neighbours in the group, I saw that he held "four of a kind".
I stood tightly wedged in at my post; but somehow I managed to edge up a little closer behind him.
He had a small pile of bills at his right, amounting to maybe twenty dollars or a little more.
Betting started somewhere around the table.
The giant seemed to bide his time.
The engineer's voice was pyramiding the bets, quickly, sharply, skilfully.
More and more betters dropped out of the game; at last there was a momentary pause. I saw that the pot held the stakes left over from a draw.
The deep bass of the giant in front sang out, "Wait a minute, you pup."
And then he made a fatal mistake. The betting stood at fifteen dollars; he should have accepted the bet as it stood. But, instead of merely "staying in," he raised it to twenty dollars.
That gave the engineer the chance for which he was waiting. With a swift side-look of his eye he appraised the giant's pile. I doubt whether many saw that look; but I knew that very moment that the giant was not going to win even though chance had dealt him a "hand among hands". The engineer calmly raised the bet back on him, to an amount way beyond the giant's holdings.
The game stood between the two.
I think, the giant realized at once that he had made an

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irretrievable mistake. But his fist came down on the table with a tremendous thump which sent the lanterns jumping up into the air.
"I'll call you," he roared, "you son-of-a-gun!"
The engineer sat coolly unmoved. "Put up," he said, throwing his money into the already large "pot".
The giant looked about, as if reading the faces. None of those he saw held the slightest encouragement.
"Loan me thirty buck," he called to no one in particular.
Not a man made a move.
There was a cruel perversity in this indifference. If I had had the money in my pocket, I should have slipped it to him. He was sure of his game. His "hand" could hardly be beaten. But, of course, it was not the possible or certain chance of recovery which would have prompted me. Iniquity was being perpetrated, even though in a game; I heard the unspoken call for redress.
A pleading look crept into the giant's face. He bent over and showed his neighbour what he held.
The only answer that man made was to close his hand over his pile of bills.
The giant muttered. He turned back to the engineer; but his voice sounded hopeless when he said, "I have sixty dollars coming to me at the office. I'll give you my IOU."
"I won't accept it; I am not a fool," replied the engineer with a steely sneer.
The giant clenched his fist as if ready to spring; his eyes bulged; he bent forward.
The engineer, piercing him with his steady look, reached with a blind hand for the handle of his knife.
There was a moment's tension which came close to sending a sob into my throat.
Then the giant relaxed, threw, with a coarse word, his cards on the table, got to his feet, and shouted, "Count me out. You can't beat the devil."
The engineer smiled his smile of bravado and for a

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second spread his cards into a fan, for the onlookers to see his hand.
Then he raked in the pot.
I squeezed myself out of the crowd. When, on my way to the door, I passed those who stood behind the engineer, I touched one of the men on the shoulder.
"What did he have?" I asked in a whisper.
"Nothing," was the reply.
Next morning, when I went out into the fresh, rainwashed air, one of the men who, the night before, had seen me in the hall said in passing, "Three of them are still at it, over there."

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