DIDN'T HE STRING
THOSE CANADIANS?
WELL, ASK SAM, THE WANDER-
ING OFFICE BOY.
He's Home Again, With the Story of
His Adventures All Written
Out, Just Like Mr. Roose-
velt -- Read It.
SAM LIEBERMAN,
The Wandering Office Boy.
Once there was an office boy, unlike the general run of office boys in that he sometimes had an original idea. He worked for The Journal, until he got one of the ideas. That was to the effect that he was destined to be a great explorer and write things like Frank Carpenter and Theodore Roosevelt -- or, at least, like Mr. Roosevelt's going to write.
So it was a traveling bug that bit Sam one sunny spring day. He said nothing, but pocketed his week's pay and hit the grit. He came back a few days ago with the story of his adventures all written out, just as Mr. Carpenter or Mr. Roosevelt would have done under similar conditions. Entering the local room, where a tardy reporter sat welting the daylights out of his typewriter, Sam said: "Well, the wandering Jew's back."
Sam is the son of Rabbi Max Lieberman of this city. He is 13 years old and small for his years but wise, far, oh, far indeed, beyond them. This is his story, just as he turned it it:
Just as soon as the weather got warm last spring, I got the fever that thousands of other boys get, and that was to "Run away." I had no reason on earth to go, but as I said, the fever was in me and I wanted to go. I wanted to get out and live on my own hook. About June 1st I picked up a magazine containing a story how a man beat it on a blind baggage (a small platform between the engine and baggage car), and I got the facts down pat, and by June the 3rd I was on the blind of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul bound for Chicago.
The engineer saw me get on but did not say anything. When the train would come up to a station I would duck down on the step on the opposite side of the station and as the steps were high and I was small I had no trouble at stopping places the ducking down business lasted until I got to Chillicothe, Mo. There was a bunch of young farm boys standing on the side I was ducking down and they saw me. When the train stopped they ran up to me and wanted to know where I was going and where I come from and ect. When the train was about to start the engineer asked them to hold me until the train started. The boys held me and when the train was going pretty fast they let go of me. The Idea of being stuck in a little town lent wings to my feet and I hiked. I never ran so fast in my life; as the train struck the upgrade it slowed up and I caught the second blind.
At the next stopping place I got on the first blind. The engineer then turned a hose on me but I braced against the tender where 7,000 gallons or the capacity is printed and the water passed over me. Towards evening I was so hungry and thirsty that I thought I would die. After a while I was so thirsty that I thought I would ask the engineer for a drink. I thought the worst he could do was to put me off and I was desperate so I clumb over the tender into the cab. When the engineer saw me he said: "Kid I admire your nerve, but you will have to get out of the cab." I asked him for a drink and the fireman gave me one from a kerosene can; then I went back to the blind.
2 DOLLARS WASN'T MUCH.
That evening I took a boat for Milwaukee where I arrived next morning. I struck a job and worked a week. I would have worked longer but the factory inspector said I was too young to work. I got 5 dollars which went for board and some clothes.
I still had $3.50 left so I bought a ticket to Ludington, Michigan on the Pere Marquette Steamship Co. The ticket cost me half a dollar which left me three plunks. Next morning I was in Ludington and I was about dead broke before I struck a job. The job was to clean lanterns at 2 1/2 cents a piece. I made about a dollar and decided to quit the place for a bigger city. That night I was on a freight bound for Saginaw Mich, where I arrived 11 a. m. next morning cold and hungry.
MEETS ANN ARBOR GIRLS.
I got odd jobs such as carry grips and ect until evening then I went to Bell Isle park. The next day I carried grips and sold papers and made about $1.50. I bought a ticket for Buffalo which cost $1.75 by boat and next morning I was in Buffalo with about $4 in my pocket. I took a car for Niagara Falls but came back in an hour. I stayed in Buffalo about 2 days and then went to Crystal Beach, Ont., where I struck a job and held it all the while.
HE STRUNG THEM.
OPENING FOR JUDGE WALLACE.
