By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Ten thousand miles from home, beautiful faces, fifty old books, ivy-covered cabin life, tobacco, beer, and unpaid travel turn hoboing into a rough luxury of memory.
Distance does not erase home; it makes foreign beauty answer back to it. The log cabin with a lady, infants, ivy, and moss feels almost pastoral, but the tobacco, beer, and unpaid transport keep the scene tied to labor and improvisation. "Worked my way, every way I went" gives the whole memory its dignity.
Distance does not erase home; it makes it answer back -- 'Ten thousand miles away from home / I used to see women's faces / as pretty as my hometown.' The remembered scene turns nearly pastoral, 'a log cabin' with 'a lady and two / infants, / covered with ivy and moss', yet 'tobacco, / and a glass of beer' keep it earthbound. The dignity is in the labor: 'I had not paid / for transportation / Cause I hoboed and / worked my way, every way I went.'