"Let's hope that by then Brother Lu will have decided town life is too dull for him, and be once more holding down the railroad ties in his journeying through the country.

I've read that it's mighty hard for a genuine tramp to settle down to any civilized sort of existence.
You see, they're of a sort of migrating gypsy breed, and get as uneasy as a fish out of water when stalled for any length of time." "'Course that would settle it all beautifully," agreed Thad, with a relieved look on his honest face; "but according to my mind it would be too good to come true.

That sly chap means to play the game to the limit.

As long as he isn't half starved he'll hang on there, and work upon the sympathy of those poor people.

The only sure way to get him dislodged would be to cut his rations short; though to do that you'd have to hurt Matilda and her sick husband.
But give me a little time, and I'll fix him, that's right, I will!" If Brother Lu could only have seen and heard all this he might have been made a bit uneasy, under the conviction that his soft berth in his sister's home was not going to prove such an easy snap as the conditions seemed to imply.