Here's version B from Lomax & Lomax, American Ballads and Folk Songs, 1934 - page 29

Ten Thousand Miles from Home

Standing on the platform,
Smoking a cheap cigar,
A-listening for the next freight train
To catch an empty car,

My pocketbook was empty,
My heart was full of pain,
Ten thousand miles away from home,
A-bumming the railroad train.

And I was cold and hungry,
And had not a bite to eat;
I laid me down to take a nap
And rest my weary feet.

Then I walked up to a kind miss,
And asked for a bite to eat,
A little piece of cornbread
And a little piece of meat.

She threw her arms around me:
"I love you as a friend,
But if I gave you this to eat
You'd bum 'round here again."

"Kind miss, kind miss,
Don't talk to me so rough,
You think that I'm a old hobo,
Because I look so tough."

She took me in her kitchen,
She treated me nice and kind;
She got me in the notion
Of bumming all the time.

And as I left the kitchen
And went down to the town,
I heard a double-header blow,
And thought she was western bound.

I walked down on the sidetrack
And stopped at the railroad shop;
And heard an agent tell a man
The train it would not stop.

My heart began to flutter
And I began to sing,
"Ten thousand miles away from home,
A-bummin' a railroad train."

I pulled my cap down over my eyes
And walked on down the tracks;
Then I caught a sleeping-car,
And never did look back.

I got off at Danville,
Got struck on a Danville girl;
You bet your life she was out of sight,
She wore those Danville curls.

She wore her hat on the back of her head,
Like high-tone people do.
And the very next train comes down this line,
I'll bid that girl adieu.


(Lomax got this from H.H. Fuson's Songs of the Kentucky Highlands)