Our grandmother was born in 1889. In those days it was not uncommon for
men to come to the kitchen door of a house and ask to do chores in exchange for
food. The house she grew up in was not far from the railroad tracks. Our grandmother’s
mother would give the hobo a simple chore, because often he was not physically able to do
much, but none would not take a plate of food without working for it first.
Granny was born with a hearing problem. One afternoon, she was about ten,
she was walking between the railroad tracks on her way home from school. She
never heard the train whistle and must have had her mind on something else,
because when she realized the tracks were vibrating and looked up to see the
train behind her, she froze.
Out of nowhere, an old hobo ran up and scooped her
up off the tracks. She was so shaken up he walked her home. Her mother came
to the door and took her daughter inside to fix her a cup of tea and calm her down.
When she went back outside to thank the old hobo, he was gone.
A few minutes
later, another hobo came by to inquire about possible chores. When our
great-grandmother asked him if he had seen the old hobo, he told her that he had
passed away in the hobo jungle earlier that week. Our grandmother told the man
what had happened and described the old hobo. The man swore it had indeed been him that had saved her...
Often, our grandmother would hear stories from other hobos that would
stop by her home about the solitary old hobo who haunted the tracks…
