Visalia Daily Times (Feb. 9, 1895), p. 2:

                The Dying Hobo

The following verses were written upon the walls of a water tank at a lonely railroad station in Arizona. The author was probably one of those unfortunate men who by a series of mishaps had fallen unwillingly into the army of the wandering unemployed:

'Twas at a western water tank
One cold November day
Within an empty boxcar
A dying hobo lay.
His partner sat beside him,
As he viewed the dying soak,
And he bent with blear-eyed glances
To hear the words he spoke.

"I an going," said the hobo,
"To a land so fair and bright;
And the weather there is warm enough
To sleep out doors at night.
Where hand-outs' grow on bushes,
And the farmers don't use locks.
Where little streams of alchohol
Come trickling down the rocks.

"Tell my sweetheart down on Clark street,
When next her face you view,
That I've caught a great eternal freight,
That's sure to run straight through.
Where no man has to work.
Tell her not to weep for me -
In her eyes no tears must lurk -
For I'm going to tramp a country
Where no man has to work.
             WANDERING WILLY.

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The text in the Sacramento Daily Record-Union (May 9, 1895), p. 3, "found in a cell at the city prison that had just been vacated by some tramps," is identical to the 1894 text except that the hobo has a "Front-street sweetheart."

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Wichita Daily Eagle (Jan. 29, 1897), p. 5:

                  WEARY WILLIE'S DREAM...

Beyond a western water tank on a cold December day
Within an empty box-car a dying hobo lay.
His pal sat close beside him, with his head bent gently low,
To hear his comrade's last request ere he was called to go
"I'm going," said the hobo, to a land both fair and bright;
Where hand-outs grow on bushes - I can sleep out every night;
Where whisky comes a-trickling thro' the crevice in the rocks
And freight trains carry empties - you can always get your box."