Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-11-23

Some years ago widow living on the line Of
| the Ohio and Mississippi railroad, about one
| hundred miles from St. Louis, owned a young
| COW OF which she was particularly proud. As
| the woman was not possessed of much of this
worlds goods, the COW was an important source
| OF income TO her, as she made butter for sale,
| and also sold some milk in the nGiThbOrhood.
| One day the express train came laundering
| along, and struck and killed the widows COW
| as it stood Illuminating on the track. The widow
applied 10 the station agent for pay for the ami
| NAL and was told to send in bill to the gener-
al office of the road. She did so, but received no
| reply, and, after writing several times without
| effect, called on the paymas;er the next time he
went through the town to pay the section hands.
The paYmaster was very busy, and answered the
old woman so abruptly that she became offended,
| and, concluding that the road did not intend TO
make good her loss, swOre vengeance. Little
attention was paid to her threats until about a
week after, when the morning passenger train,
| bound west, came along. The station house of
| Flora is situated at the top of a gentle slope,
about half mile in length, land which the passcn-
ger trains always run up at the regular speed
of twenty miles an hour. 1t was a fine frosty
morning, and the sun was just rising and the
engineer noticed what he supposed to be frost
glistening on the rails. He sounded the whistle
for the station, and putting on more steam, he
started up the slope. The speed at which the
train was approaching, carried it about half the
way up the rise, but the driving wheels of the
locomotive sprung round on The rails without
pulling an ounce. The train came to a dead stop
and then began to slide backward. The eugl-
neer whiStled down breaks and rot off to inspect
the rails. He found, as he expected, that they
were artisticaly covered with soft soap, and as
he had had some previous experience of that
kind, knew exactly what to do. He backed
down the track about half mile, and putting
on a full head of steam, charged at the rise with
full speed. When he found the speed slacken
ing he opened his sand valves and allowed the
sand in the boxes to glide through the pipes and
on the rails in front of the driving wheels. This,
TO some extent, counteTacted the effect of the
soap, and the train got nearly fifty yards fur
ther than it did before. 1t finally stopped again
and the engineer again backed out and again
charged the slope. The process was repeated
several times, and would have finally been sue
ceSsfu had not the sand given out. The soil IN
tue neIghborhOOd was a soft dark loan, and
where the railroad cut was made stiff yellow
clay was turned up. No sand could be procured
anywhere, and finally the whole force of train
men went to work TO remove the soap. This
they succeeded in doing alter half hours hard
work, and nearly an hour behind time the train
reached the station. A few days after similar
difficulty was experienced, and the road officials
began TO get decidedly angry. An attorney was
sent out there 10 discover and prosecute the
perpetraiOr, but soon after his arrival was con-
tidently informed that the road would have no
trouble in future if the widow was paid for the
COW. He took the hint, teeoraphed to the
president, and receiving the necessary author
lty, paid for the animal and left the place. The
track was never soaped afterwards, and the wild
OW bought another COW