A story our grandmother told us...

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…