The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1857-06-06
COUNCIL BLUFFS, May 3lst., 10
CHANCES AND CHANGES--A RAILROAD
REMlNISCENCE.

CHANCES AND CHANGEs--A RAILROAD
"REMINISCENCES.
BY FRANCES D. GAGE.
ssI say, Mr.. Conductor, when will the next
express train 60 out to ST.. Louis?"
s'Eleven O'Clock and thirty minutes, to-
night, SIR" was the gentlemanly reply to
the roug h query.
ssEleven O'Clock and thirty minutes! Go
to Texas Why, it's ten this very minute.
I'll bet my boots against jack-knife the
morning express is of.
"Yes, sir, it has been gone half an hour
"Why in natur' didn't you get us here
sooner? Fourteen hours in Chicager is
enough to break feller all to smash. Four
teen hours in Chicager, putting and blowing!
I've been told they keep regular six-hun-
dred boss steam power all the while run.
ming, to- blow themselves up with, and pick
the pockets of every traveller to pay the fire.
men and engineers! Wall, guess l can
stand it; Pve twenty that's never been
broke, think that will put me through
Why didn't you fire up, old brag-give your
old hoss another peck of oats. Itell ye.
this fourteen hours will knock my calcula-
tions 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 thermom.
eter sixteen below zero, are enemies we
can't readily overcome"
"That's so," said the first speaker, with
broad emphasis, and a good natured, for
giving smile. ''Fourteen hours in Chica.
ger!''
The stentorian voice, sounding like q
trumpet, had aroused every sleeper from
elysian dreams into which he might have
fallen after his long, tedious, cold nights
travel. Every head was turned, every eye
was fixed on the man who had broken the
silence. He was standing by the stove
warming his boots. To have warmed his
feet through such a mass of COW hide and
sole leather, would have been fourteen
hours operation. Six feet four or five inch.
es he stood in those boots with shoulders
leased in fur coat) that looked more like
bearing up world than you will meet ordi.
narily, in half a lifetime. His head Web.
sterian, his shaggy hair black as jet, hi:
whiskers to match, his dark, piercing eye
and his jaws eternally moving, with Il rous-
ng quid between them, while a smile Of
cheerful good humor, Notwithstanding hi'
seeming impatience, attracted every ones
attention.
"Fourteen hours in Chicager, eh? Wall
| can stand it if the rest can; if twenty dol
lIrs won't carry me through, I'll borry Of
my friends. Pve got the things that'll bring
'em. That's so.''
And he thrust hand little less in size
han common spade, down into the cavern
Gus depths of a broad-striped. hashy pair Of
pants, and brought up that great red hand
full as it could hold, of shining twenty dol
lar gold pieces.
"Don't yer think l can stand these ere
Chicagers for one fourteen hours!"
A nod of assent from three or four, and 4
smile of curiosity from the rest, answered
his question in the affirmative.
"You must have been in luck, stranger
said an envious looking little man. SYou'vt
more than your share of gold" d.
81 have, eh?" Wall | reckon not.
come honestly by it. That's so. And there's
them living who can remember this chile
when he went round the p'rairies trapping
p'rairy hens and the like, to get him a nights
lodging, or pair of shoes, to keep the mas
sasaugers from biting my toes; have hung
myself up more nor one night in the timber,
to keep out of the way Of the wild varmints;
best sleeping in the world, in the crotch OF
a tree-top. Now, reckon you wouldn't
believe it, but pve gone all winter without a
shoe to my foot; and lived on wild game,
when | could ketch it. That's so!''
sDidn't stunt your growth" said voice
near.
ssNot bit of it. 1t brought me up right.
These p'rairics are wonderful roomy. |
thought one spell would let myself out en-
tirely, but me and mother held corcus,
and decided that she was getting old, and
blindlike, it TUX too long, and cost too much
to sew up the legs of my trousers, and so
put a stop to it, and concluded that six foot
five would do for feller that couldn't af-
ford the expensive luxury of wife to make
his breeches. 1t was only my love for my
mother that stopped my growth. II I'D
had an idea Of a sewing machine, there's no
| telling what might have DONE"
"You have SO many gold pieces in your
pocket, you can afford to get your trousers
made now. Why don't you and your moth
er hold another caucus, and see what you
can do? If she would let you expand your
self, you might sell out to Barnum, and
make fortune travelling with Tom Thumb,
and take the old woman along"
ssStranger," said the rough, great man,
and his whole face loomed up with mingled
expression of pain and pride. ssStranger, l
spoke word here didn't mean to; slight
" word, like, about my mother. would
give all the gold in my pocket to bring her
back for one hour, to look upon this coun-
try as it is now. She had her cabin here
when Chicager was nowhere; here she raised
her boys-she couldn't give them larnin' |,
but she taught us better things than books
can give; to be honest, and useful, and in
dustrious. She taught US to be faithful and
true; to stand BY friend, and be generous
to an enemy. It's thirty years, stranger,
since we dug her grave by the lake side with
our own hands; and with many tear and
sob, turned ourselves away from the cabin
where we'd been raised-the Indians had
killed our father long before, and We had
nothing to keep us-and so we went to seek
our fortunes. My brother, he took down
to St. Louis, and got married down thar;
and just went where the wind blowed, and
when I'd got money enough together, ! cum
back and bought few acres of land around
my mothers old cabin, for the place where