314 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



much of a modern classic as Robinson Crusoe. His narrative 

 of a sailor's hardships and helplessness when in foreign lands, 

 under a tyrannical master, resulted in the passage of laws for 

 the protection of poor Jack. So I have faith of greater bulk 

 than a mustard seed that some good may come out of this 

 literary Nazareth ; not from the book generally, but from the 

 part devoted to my California experience. May not those 

 who have been fortunate enough to read this narrative look on 

 a tramp as something more than an absorbent of odors, more 

 or less Arabian, a lodgment for dirt, and an incipient incen- 

 diary in case his wants are not supplied ? May not ruralists, 

 who are in a position to employ help, change their views in 

 regard to them ? When in the stables the alternate thrums 

 in the milk-pails cease ; when the plowman musingly halts at 

 the shad}^ end of the furrow, and in the kitchen the rattle of 

 dish-washing stops under your Abigail's manipulations, may 

 not the imminent chiding words be withheld ? Will not such 

 favored readers reflect that these helpers may be employing 

 their borrowed, begrudged intervals in studying up points for 

 some forthcoming book in which their employers' virtues or 

 demerits will be aired in the coldest of type ? Will they not, 

 in awe, remember that the tramp may be an embryotic author — 

 a " cliiel amang them ta'en notes," to be printed for their pleas- 

 ure or misery in proportion as the}^ treat him ? 



So, with the hope that at least this much good may result 

 from my literary venture, I close. But I hope for more : that 

 the foregoing recital of my travels over a country so changed 

 since I made my pilgrimage, a generation ago, may have an 

 interest created by the narration alone, and that the reader 

 will be wiser when he comes to the 



End of a California Tramp. 



