The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1857-08-05
MISCELLANY.
CHANCES AND CHANGES; A
RAILROAD REMINIS.
CENCE.
BY FRANCIS DANA. GAGE.

81 say, Mr.. Conductor, when will the
next express train go out for st. Louis.
"Eleven o'clock and thirty minutes to-
night, sir" was the gentlemanly reply to
the rough query.
"Eleven o'clock and thirty minutes =
GO TO TEXAS! Why, it's ten this very min
ute. I'll bet my boots against jack
knife the morning express is off"
Eyes, sir, it has been gone half an
hour.
"Why in natur didn't you get us here
sooner9 Fourteen hours in Chicager is
enough to break fellow all to smash
Fourteen hours in Chicager, putting and
blowing! I've been told they keep reg
ular six-hundred boss steam power all
the while running, to blow themselves up
with, and pick the pockets of every trav-
eler to pay the firemen and engineers =
Wall, l gness l can stand it.; Eve TWEEN
ty that's never been broke, | reckon that
will put me through. Why didn't you
fire up, old brag-give your old boss an
other peck of oats. tell We, this four
teen hours will knock my calculations all
into the middle of next week."
"Very sorry, sir-we've done our best;
but as we are not clerks of the weather,
hope you will not lay your misfortunes
to our account. Snow-drifts and the
thermometer sixteen below zero, are enc
mics we can't readily overcome
"That's So" said the first speaker, with
broad emphasis, good natured forgiving
smile. "Fourteen hours in Chicager."
Tho stentorian voice, sounding like
trumpet, had aroused every sleeper from
elysian dreams into which he might have
fallen after long, tedious, cold nights
travel. Every head was turned, every
eve was fixed or the man who had thus
broken the silence. He was standing by
the stove, warming his boots. To have
warned his feet through such a mass of
sole leather, would have been a " fourteen
hours" operation. SIX feet four or five
inches he stood in his boots, with shout
ders leased in fur coat) that looked
moro like bearing up world than you
will meet ordinarily, in half a life time
His head Wcbsterian, his shaggy hair
black as Jet: his whiskers to match, his
dark, piercing eye, and his jaws eternally
moving, with n rousing quid between
them, while smile of cheerful good hui
NOR, Notwithstanding his seeming impa-
tience, attracted every ono's attention.
"Fourteen hours in Chicager, Ell?
Wall, l can stand it if the rest can; if
twenty dollars won't carry me through,
I'll berry of my friends. I've got the
things thatl bring 'em. That's So" l
And he thrust hand little less in
size than a common spade, down into
the cavernous depths of abroad-striped,
flashy pair of pants, and brought up that
great red hand, full as it could hold, of
shining twenty dollar gold pieces.
"Don't yer think / can stand these ere
Chicagers for one fourteen hours y
A nod of assent from three or four,
and smile of curiosity from the rest an
swered this question in the affirmative.
"You must have been in luck, stran-
GER" said an envious looking little man.
"You've more than your share of gold"
81 have, Ell? Well / reckon not. l
come honestly by it, that's so. And
there's them living who can remember
this child when he went round these p'ra-
ries trapping p'rarry hens and the like,
to get him a nights lodging, or pair of
shoes to keep the massasaugers from BIZ
ting my toes. I've hung myself up more
nor one night in the timber, to keep out
the way of the wild varments; best sleep
ING in the world, in the crotch of tree
top. Now / reckon you wouldn't be-
lieve it, but I've gone all winter without a
shoe to my foot; and lived on wild game
when could ketch it. That's SOP
"Didn't stunt your growth" said voice
near.
"Not a bit of it. 1t brought me up
right. These p'rarries are wonderful
roomy. / thought one spell would let
myself out entirely, but me and mother
held a corkus and decided that as she was
getting old, and blind like, it TUX to long,
and cost too much to sew up the legs of
trousers, and so | put a stop to it, and con-
Guided that six foot FIVE would do for a
Teller that couldn't afford the expensive
luxury of wife to make his breeches.-
1t was only my love for my mother that
stopped my growth. If I'd a had an :,
idea of sewing machine, there's no tell
ing what I'd DONE" !.
.You have 80 many gold pieces IN
your pocket, YOU can afford to get your
trousers made now. Why don't you and
your mother hold another caucus, and
see what you can dol If she would let
you expand yourself, you might sell out
to Barnum, and make fortune travelling
with Tom Thumb, and take tho old wo-
man along. Z
STRANGER" said the rough, great man,
and his whole face doomed up with min-
gied expression of pain and pride. "Stran-
ger, spoke word here didn't mean
TO; a slightly word, like, about my moth
or. would give all the gold in my
pocket to bring her back for one hour, to
look npon this country as it is now. She
had her cabin here when Chlcager was
nowhere; here she raised her boys-she
eonldn't give them larnin," but she taught
W better things than books can give; te
~ bo~oet and uSaf,,l and Industrious