I washed the can and brought it back. The chicken and coffee were cooked and cooling near the fire. The cook scalded out the small can and filled it with coffee. He held out the pan of chicken to the other bum and then to me, helping himself to a piece last. The small can of coffee was now cool enough to drink, and was handed around in the same order. The first bum took several swallows and passed it to me. I handed it to the cook without drinking any. He looked at me for the first time.

“Say, brat, listen. If you was some kind of a rank dingbat you wouldn’t have been invited down here. Don’t think because you couldn’t hustle a can that you ain’t entitled to your coffee.”

“You’re right at that, Jack,” said the bum that furnished the coffee. “Go ahead, kid.”

I drank my coffee and passed the can along. We ate in silence. The chicken and bread soon disappeared. My companions lit up their pipes and smoked while we finished the coffee.

I was learning fast. I took the frying pan, filled it with water, and put it on the fire, without waiting for orders. When the water boiled I washed it at the creek, scrubbed it with sand, and returned it to the owner.

“Where you from, kid?”

“The city,” I answered.

“How long you been on the road?”

“This is my first day.”

“Got any people?”

“No, they are all dead.”

“Where you goin’?”

“Oh, just west, anywhere, everywhere.”

“Got any pennies?”