The Tramp Who Demanded Breakfast
A gentleman in a suburban cottage tried to shoo away a prowler from his back yard, only to discover the intruder was waiting for his morning meal at the front door.
Yesterday a gentleman residing in a neat, modest cottage in the suburbs saw a tramp prowling around his back yard, evidently trying to steal something. 'Why don't you come to the front door if you want anything?' indignantly replied the proprietor.
'That's what I was looking for,' was the impudent reply.
'Didn't you see it on the other side of the house?' retorted the gentleman.
'How was I to know that was the front door? No silver plate, no bell, no telephone, no statuary, no servant to take your hat or cane. Tell your boss there is a gentleman out here who is waiting for his breakfast.'
When the gentleman got back within the shot-gun, the tramp was not there any more.
This 1872 anecdote captures the early tension between Seattle's emerging domestic privacy and the transient labor force that built it. While today we might view such an encounter through the lens of homelessness or mental health crises, in the frontier era, the 'tramp' was a common figure who challenged the rigid social codes of property and class, often using wit to navigate a world where basic amenities like doorbells were luxuries.
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