ld pay."

"They make up for it by increasin' the power of machinery, by givin' a
man less and less to learn and more and more of some simple thing to
do."

"In a way that ought to be good, too," the boy persisted, "for the more
a machine does, the bigger wages the man who runs it gets."

"I'm not a machinist," the tramp replied, "an' even if I were I should
be in competition with the Swedes all along the line. Bein' just a
steel worker, I stood for one reduction in wages because they promised
to give me a better job. But this supposed better job was just bossin' a
gang of these foreigners, an' they got after me because I took every
chance I got to talk 'union' to these men, showin' them how they could
just as easily get more pay than they were bein' given. That didn't suit
the company at all, so I was fired, an' they put me on the black list."

"And you couldn't get any more work there at all?"

"Not there, or at any place in the district. Or, for that matter, in any
place in the United States unless I gave a false name. Steel workin' is
my trade, an' I don't know any other; the men that run that trade in the
United States refuse to let me work at it; very well, then, if the
country won't let me earn my livin' by working for it, it'll have to
give me a livin' without. But I'd go to work to-morrow, if I had the
chance."

"Not me," began 'Jolly Joe,' as soon as the tall tramp had finished,
"I'd sooner be a hobo th'n anythin' else I know. In the first place, I'm
not like 'Hatchet Ben,' I don't like work an' I don't do any unless I
have to, an' then besides, there's more exercise for my talents in this
business. If you think it isn't a trick to rustle grub for three hungry
men, just you try it. An' while I've been on the road for nearly six
years, I've never had a dog set on me yet."

"How do you mean?" asked the boy.

"There's always grub on a farm if you know the right way to go about
getting it," was the reply "and there's very few places I ever go away
from without some bread or a hunk of ham or a pie. Lots of chickens get
lost, too, an' you find them wanderin' about in the woods, belongin' to
nobody, an' there's plenty of nests that hens lay astray that the
farmers never could find. If you watch the bees closely, there's nearly
always some swarm that's got away an' made a nest in a dead tree. The
trouble is that most people are too busy to lie still all day an' watch,
an' those that aren't busy don't know."