Until We Meet Again | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Until We Meet Again | Previous Challenge Entry
By Terry R A Eissfeldt
02/03/16
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The rhythmic rocking and melodic clicking of a railcar riding steel tracks is music to my soul. It brings me back to my hobo days.

Hobo, a poor homeless vagabond. Not a bum, who refuses to work. Not a tramp who only works when forced to. Hobo: honourable, helpful, useful.

The thirties blew in with a vengeance reserved for apocalyptic times. None were spared. The rich lost their glad rags and road stakes in the stock market. The farmers lost their livelihood to the wind. And I, well, I was just one of a million starving kids. So I took to the rails.

I heard there was always food in the hobo camps. They called them jungles. All I had to do was hop on a train and find one.

I’ll never forget the night I left. My parents were sleeping soundly. I tried to squeeze out from amongst my brothers quietly. Three of us shared one small cot. The hand sewn quilt, made of rags, barely covered us.

I slept on the end closest to the door. Ever so slowly, I lifted the corner of the quilt and slipped one foot out. Next I shimmied the quilt over my back. Cool night air immediately slithered through my thin nightshirt sending a shiver down my spine. Doubt crept over me like the moonbeam I watched pass over the wood plank flooring, as I bided my time. I tucked the merger blanket under my baby brother. He woke up.

“What ya doing, Sean?” George’s round face turned my way, inquisition in his dark eyes. Curiouser than our skinny barn cat.

  “Going to the outhouse,” I ruffled his hair swallowing hard. He settled back under the covers. I turned, grabbed my clothes off the floor, and crept out the door.

Earlier in the day I slipped an extra slice of bread under my shirt when Momma was in the dirt patch she called a garden. I felt bad about stealing the bread but I figured it was my breakfast portion anyway.

I also stashed an old empty canning jar away. The kind Momma used to put jam in and give to the neighbours for Christmas. Back when rain blessed the strawberry patch.

I had packed my few belongings and tied them up in my hankie. I hung it on a stick like the hobo’s did.

After retrieving the bindle-stick from the hollow of the old oak, I turned for one last look at home.

The full moon was high that night. It’s silvery light laid like a magical cape over the old farm yard. Though I knew the barn was as empty as the dried up river bed, I suddenly saw it how it used to be; full of life.

Even the dirt in the garden looked dark and moist. The old house, unpainted for years, was shining so bright it looked newly whitewashed. After taking a deep breath I let it slowly out in a prayer Momma taught me.

“Until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.”

They say once the hobo blood flows in your veins you aren’t cut out for regular life.
After all a hobo is the ruler of his life, on the fly, padding the hoof when necessary, working for what’s needed, content in the company of strangers, sharing what one has for the good of all.

But eventually the pull was too much. I traveled back home under a full moon. Of course my family was happy to see me, and I them, and though I tried to settle down I couldn’t. But this time I parted with their blessing.

I found work in a rail yard. Work I could stick to. I even made Brakeman.

Now I’m paid to travel the rails. And whenever a full moon lays it’s beams over me, I think of home and whisper, “Until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.”

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