Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1876-10-25
A Plate and a PumpkinPie.

TIate ana PuMpklnF1e.
Barney Sageman, which is far from
being his real name, first saw light
and learned to scratch and bite his lit
tie brothers and sisters on farm in
an interior township of Wisconsin,
He had never gone many miles from
home, and when on his thirteenth
birthday. which occurred recently, his
father told him that he could celebrate
the important occasion which had
ushered into the world a possible fu-
ture President of the United States
by a visit to maiden aunt in Chicago,
Barney's heart bounded with JOY, and
and he flung his copper-toed boots
around, and shouted until dads hired
leave of the little sense he had ever
possessed.
And now we see Barney seated in a
car on the Chicago & Northwestern
Railroad, speeding toward the city.
He has been riding for some time, and
the gnawing in his stomach tells him
he is hungry. The provident mother
of the youth had given him previous
to his departure basket containing
two good-sized lunches, which were to
constitute his dinner and supper, after
which he would be in the Garden City.
In the basket was a pumpkin pie, and
this pie rested on plate that mamma
Sageman had borrowed several months
previous from her sister in Chicago,
and omitted to return for lack of an
opportunity.
"Now, Barney, you can eat the pie
from off that plate on the road and
then be sure and give it to your aunt"
said Mrs. Sageman, and her parting
injunction was, Don't fail to give
your aunt that borrowed plate"
Barney lifted the piece of china con-
tanning the pie out of the basket, and
admired the golden pumpkin and its
circle of crust while he sat in the car
He was cogitating whether he had bet
ter begin his noon meal on the pie or
tackle some of the plain biscuits and
butter that his basket contained, when
he noticed that a lot of biscuit crumbs
had fallen on the former. Having
been well brought up, Barney hesi-
tated about brushing them off on the
floor, and finally opened the window
and leaned out with the pie in his
hand to perform the operation. Sud
denly everybody in the ear was star
tied by a loud cry that rang forth from
Barney's lips, and was even heard by
the conductor on the platform, despite
the noise made by the train, which was
laundering on adown grade at the rate
of fifty miles an hour. The piteous
cry was repeated, and the wall was
taken up by every woman and child in
the coach, while the lips of strong men
began to culver, as the owners thought
that an infant held carelessly in its
brothers arms must have fallen from
the window.
"Wheres the CONDUCTOR "Stop
the train"' shouted several persons in
imperative tones, and the conductor,
nothing 10th, pulled the bell-rope, his
heart in his mouth as he thought of
how much he would dislike to lose his
own bright little baby at home, and
dreaded to learn the full extent of the
calamity that had befallen somebody's
pet.
The air-brakes were applied, and
after several minutes, that seemed an
age to the occupants of the car in
which Barney Sageman was seated,
the long train was checked, and then
began to move slowly back to the spot
where the stranger youth had given
vent to his first scream. The lad had
remained silent after the conductor
rang the bell to stop, and as the train
slowly backed up he leaned his head
out of the window, unmindful Of the
passengers who crowded around him,
or of the people who were beginning
to swarm on the platforms of all of
the cars.
"Can you see anything of the
corpse?" "Is it badly mangled 2"
"Oh, how terrible this is"' Was it
"a boy or girl 2" were some of the re-
marks that were uttered.
At length Barney gave vent to glad
shout, and rushed through the crowd
that made way for him out of the car
just as the train stopped. His first
words, 4" see it, served to put
every one on the q,ti oioe even more
than before, but when he jumped from
the platform and picked up from a
grassy knoll, on which it had fallen,
his maiden aunt's plate, and annoluced
in joyous tones that it was not broken,
the readers will not wonder that some
of the passengers felt little wroth,
nor that the conductor and engineer of
that train thought that it required a
vast amount Of tall swearing to insure
their arrival at their destination on
time. -Chic0g0 IteT-Ocean.
THE use of powerful explosives has
beer taken advantage OF in this coun-
fry far more than i'm the old countries.