Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/207



father was foreman in a machine-shop, honest enough, but brutal to the boy, who loved his mother, who loved, but was too weak to help, her son. He “bummed” the streets day and night, dodging his father, who cuffed and cursed him whenever their paths crossed. Lee ran away, and to keep himself became a sneak thief. Before he was ten, he had “bummed” his way from Chicago to Denver and become a “pretty slick thief.” Arrested now and then, and railroaded by the law, he was patted on the back in the jails by hardened criminals who taught him to pick pockets. Caught at this, he learned burglary from burglars in the jail and, at the age of twelve, nearly killed himself trying to blow a safe. The “Bull-pen” had shown him how, but he put the powder in the wrong place. He was full of courage. An experienced “hobo,” he travelled twenty-five thousand miles in one year on brake- beams till, tiring of that, he learned to sneak into Pullmans and hide and sleep in a vacant upper berth. Once he was awakened by an excla- mation from the porter: “Good Lawd, they’s a kid in heah!” The Eel tells the rest: “I flew th’ coop when the coon guy went to tell th’ conductor. That ditched me in a town they call Reno, Nevada. ’Course, I was broke. I touched a guy for a half and bought me a cane and some