Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1869 — A Boy on His Travels to the Land of Big Pears. [ARTICLE]

A Boy on His Travels to the Land of Big Pears.

On Wednesday, a Might' Mokirig fad Of ten years of age called at our office and asked the privilege inf ’looking Mer the exchanges, We gave himpernussion, whcri he drew a chair up to the table, niif his feet on it, took out a badly .charred hriarroot. pipe, fumbled down ipto the holtom of his pocket for smoking tobacco,'borrowed, from us a match, and went to work scanning the papers with the zeal, motions! and grace of a veteran editor, smoking fiercely all the white- Laying <J°wn ; thi< papers, he Inquired at, what time the .next tram left fur the West, remarking that ho' would be; much ob]ig£d by the.information.' We answered his question, and. then asked him one. In reply,ha said he.,was bound for San Francisco. -That ho wap from Scranton, Pa., where he had .last wear driven trade as a newsboy and boot black, and conceived the idea of going' farther west. lie started last June, traveling on foot and dead-heading by rail until he reached Northern Illinois, about harvest time, where ho remained for. nearly a month with a farmer, helping to get oil’ his crop by driving a machim:. Ha ww flush again-, ■' and started'lffl-his tramp, Striking across lowa, partly by rail, but mostly on foot; 1 until he reached this place. The little fej-. low does not belong to the impertinent young America, though he has souuxof its characteristics. There- tend jn, his behavior at all, though he sometimes puts on the airs of oktyr person, in ex- ’ hibiting .Some -of thtir ■> most prominent - vices. _ lie has slept in all manner of places, .sometimes in a cow-shpd,. onjdapqh platforms, in sanes? inf farm, hoasai, arid, wherever be could get shelter. Hespeaksvery highly .Of. .the hqspitalitv of.lowa farmers and-fowa landliirds, but says that he occasionly meets with a curmudgeon who denies him shelter, but ho baa nothing to complain of for tt'is Tri J bifs|rtesfcjto get the place to sleep, and another’s to give it to him. .-lie pays that hu, has,|taice dr twice, been kicked out hr rAifrrmd dfflces, and several times been put off trains, but they were iptfyjempcrary iuconvoi’iioes. Fie hopes by hook or crook to reach California before.winter sets in. He isas liyely as a cricket. Neither drinks nor swears, and at tile end of Sia journey will be u hero.— Couitcß. Bh/ffi Nonpareil.