“Cover With the Moon”

Hobo lingo:

  • accommodation car – the caboose of a train
  • angelina – young inexperienced kid
  • banjo – a small portable frying pan
  • bindle stick – collection of belongings wrapped in cloth and tied around a stick
  • bone polisher – a mean dog
  • bull – a railroad officer
  • cannonball – a fast train
  • catch the westbound – to die
  • chuck a dummy – pretend to faint
  • cow crate – a railroad stock car
  • crums – lice
  • doggin’ it – traveling by bus
  • hot shot – a train with priority freight
  • jungle – an area near a railroad in which hoboes camp and congregate
  • knowledge bus – a schoolbus used for shelter
  • road kid – a young hobo who apprentices himself to an older hobo in order to learn the ways of the road
  • rum dum – a drunkard
  • soup bowl- a palce to get soup, bread and drinks
  • yegg – a traveling professional thief