"Hobo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chance. A few tender-hearted and soft-headed citizens, of the kind who ever obstruct progress by getting some very excellent but vagrant impulses mixed up with a lack of common sense, wasted their sympathy upon the departing hobo, but soon tired of it. I remember the case of one tramp whose beat was in the block in Thirty-fifth Street in which Dr. Parkhurst lives. He was arrested for insolence to a housekeeper who refused him food. The magistrate discharged him, with some tearful remarks ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... of a brakeman who roughly shouted: "Which way, kids?" "To Saint Paul," answered Joe. "Got some money, lads, with which you can square your ride?" inquired the railroad man, as he raised his lantern higher so he could the better estimate the fare he could charge his hobo-passengers, who had now risen and were rubbing their sleep-laden eyes, and then he recognized the twins, whom he had so often greeted from his passing train, and added: "Well, I will be danged if you hoboes aren't Widow McDonald's twins," and then, after he had questioned ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... Call me a tramp—I know dat's what youse was goin' t' say. I'm used t' it. I've been a hobo so many years now dat I don't mind. De time was when I was a decent chap, though. But I'm a tramp now. Say, youse couldn't lend ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... Ryder, "I made out I was a hobo, and began stealing rides on the Belt Line Railroad. Know the road? It just circles Chicago. Truslow owns it. Yes? Well, then I began to catch on. I noticed that cars of certain numbers—thirty-one nought thirty-four, thirty-two one ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... in a tone of soothing finality, as when one hushes the fear of a child. "Sick the dogs on him. He'll go—never saw the hobo yet that wouldn't run from a dog." He smiled leeringly up at her, and reached for a second ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... of hobo puncher that rides the country with his little old pack-horse, stoppin' by to work for a grubstake when he has to, but ramblin' most of the time. He used to be a top-hand once. Worked for me a spell. But he can't stay in one place long. Wish you could ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... me now," he said with a sudden glance at her. "It don't matter where I turn up or pitch camp. I reckon I'd better not try to be a cattle king." He smiled bitterly and pitilessly at the poor figure he cut. "I reckon I'm a kind of a mounted hobo from ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... down the stairs, carrying Hugenberg in his arms.) This thing has a royal police-captain for a father and not as much courage in his body as the raggedest hobo! ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... off there, Thad," remarked Hugh, just then. "I can glimpse the fire now, and there's just one chap hanging over it. Don't you see he's a Weary Willie of a hobo, who's getting his dinner ready with wet wood. Here's a chance for us to see just how the thing is done, so let's make ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... roads are good and the weather's grand, So I'm off to play in the Hobo Band; With a gaspipe flute and a cowhide drum I'm going to make the music come. With a toot, toot, toot, and a dum, dum, dum, Just hear me make the ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... "and I thought I was getting this hobo business down pat.... Gee! I wonder if Pete was so ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... your telegraphic address. This paper," he went on, "was taken from a drunken tramp—'hobo' you ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... regulation which said that when an air-raid was on any person at all might knock at the door of any house he pleased and claim admittance. If he were not admitted at once he could call a policeman, who would have to see that he was admitted. We used to speculate on what would happen if some hobo knocked at the front door of the town house of the Duke of Westminster, say, and demanded of the butler in plush knee-breeches ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... begged me to settle down but the wanderlust had me and for 30 years I travelled from place to place. Even while in Minnesota I did not stay in Minneapolis all the time. I visited most every town in the state during the eleven years I stayed there and made hobo trips into most of ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... to Prince John's nurse, dated 1500, makes the following ample acknowledgment of the queen's early protection of him. "En todos hobo incredulidad, y a la Reina mi Senora dio Nuestro Senor el espiritu de inteligencia y esfuerzo grande, y la hizo de todo heredera como a cara y muy amada hija." "Su Alteza lo aprobaba al contrario, y lo sostuvo ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... playin' a game iv spoil-five with his old frind Coalsack, an' has paid no attintion to th' Sons iv Rest. 'Well,' he says, 'gintlemen, I'm in favor iv doin' ivrything in reason f'r th' hoboes,' he says. 'Th' protection iv th' home hobo again th' pauper can trade iv Europe,' he says, 'has been wan iv th' principal wurruks iv me life,' he says; an' he gives thim each a hand out, an' bows ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... of the story is furnished by the foot of a bartender in St. Louis. His discerning eye fell upon the form of Chicken Ruggles as he pecked with avidity at the free lunch. Chicken was a "hobo." He had a long nose like the bill of a fowl, an inordinate appetite for poultry, and a habit of gratifying it without expense, which accounts for the name given him by his ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... Returned to America and read law in his father's office. Wandered without money over Europe, and was a sandwichman in London. On the staff of the Paris Herald for a few months. Travelled over the western states as a hobo, was a bartender in a Mississippi levee camp, acted as a general with Coxey's Army, became a crime reporter for the Marion Star, owned by Senator Harding, Sub-editor of the Columbus Dispatch, Labor ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... small squeaking treble, "was a hobo. He was sitting in that car in front with the hard seats an' I went up to him an' I said, 'Hullo, Mister! why don't you wash your face an' shave it? we've all washed our faces this morning' . . . . We did, didn't we, Alice?—an' washed Porkey's too, an' he said 'Hullo, Bo! wash ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... long since gone, and from the high life in the Pie Boarding-House I had descended to my days of bread and water. All men were in a common misery. If a hobo managed to get a steak and cook it in the bushes by the railroad track, the smell of it would draw a score of hungry men into the circle of his firelight. It was a trying time, and it took all the fortitude I had to look hopefully forward toward a day when things would ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... before him a week's adventures as a hobo: a genuine hobo, with no ten dollar bill inside his belt to take the reality out of his experiences. He took stock of his worldly goods and wondered if he still looked like a dude. He recalled that he had a smile which had fascinated the ladies; would ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... and then his face lighted. "But I'll tell you what I did find. I found a drunken hobo at Atlantic City who was the best detective ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... the swagman is the happiest vagrant's life in the world. He is usually regarded as a bona fide seeker for work, and food is readily given him for the asking. Unlike the American hobo, he is given his food raw, and is expected to cook it himself. So he carries what he calls a "tucker bag" to hold his provisions; also, almost more important—his ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... I was you, I'd eat all I wanted while I had the money. If you've got to 'hobo' your way, there'll be times when you'll probably be without ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... gadabout, hobo, and tramp, that Riis has made so interesting, is an arrested, degenerate, or perverted being who abhors work; feels that the world owes him a living; and generally has his first real nomad experience in the teens or earlier. It is a chronic illusion of youth that gives "elsewhere" ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... up the tramp idea, Grace," Cleo smilingly remarked. "I'm glad of that. I didn't just fancy writing my best stationery letters to some hobo." ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... anxious to have a part in the developments; "and I saw the Chief of Police bring him into town, too. He was sure a tough-looking case. Your dad looks like a gentleman beside that hobo thief." ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... stumbled up, handed Lynch his cap and disappeared without a word. Lynch stared mournfully at it. The emblem was crushed and the cap looked rather worn and useless. He put it on his head, where it assumed the rakish tilt of a hobo's favorite tam-o'-shanter, and said: "I hope you're not thinking of blaming ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett |
