The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1876-10-27

or three minutes, perhaps, saw the
stupid little black rascal skimming over
the snow in the second track alongside
the engine. / gave short 2ofyf'! That
scared him; he put out on squirt, got
ahead into the red light of the signal
lantern-perhaps that blinded him-he
doubled before the engine as he would
before dog, right across the track. l
looked to the other side to see when he
would come in sight again, but he didn't
appear. thought he was either killed
or had run back under the train, and
forgot the creature. But when we'd got
to Seestadt, and the CRATE of my engine
was being cleaned out, the fellow down
underneath there with the poker called
out from the ash-hole: 'Hornig, Hornig,
you've brought roast with you. be-
ieve the fire of the Pluto has scorched
the fellows brains. Come down and
see! Sure enough, as true as l sit here,
there lay my hare underneath in my ash.
box, dead and half stewed. The ash-box
must have caught him on the jump. He
was in hurry to be roasted"
Loud laughter followed the young en-.
gineer's story.
"Now laugh, will you, you stupid
blockheads, at the poor beast !" growled
Zimmerman, as he filed the glasses;
"because YOU don't know what cursed
pleasant feeling one has under an ash
box"
"And do you know that, then ?" cried
several voices, in tones of strong doubt.
81 know everything, as you rascals
know right well, and have been through
everything that can happen between the
underside of the rails and the top of the
smoke-stack.
"But you haven't been in the ash
box ?" laughed the company, a little
derisively.
"Not exactly" replied the old man,
very gravely, "but under it, and partly,
too, very near in it. But 1 tell you,
I've been by when splendid train of
magnificent cars, full of people in high
spirits, with one jolt-before you could
lift your hand to your pipe or light a
match was nothing but heap of
kindling-wood and broken screws and
pieces of axles and wheels, out of which
came groans and cries for help, while
despairing men stood round it wringing
their hands; and locomotives, like kit
tens on a roof, leaped down the bank,
and rolled once, twice, three times over
and over, wheels up and smoke-stack
underneath, and all was steam, frag-
ments, fire, kissing, and shrieks; but
never in fve-and-thirty years railroad
ing has my heart stood so still as it did
under the ash box"
"Teu us about it, Uncle Zim, tell
us I" cried voices one could see were
used to making themselves heard above
the clatter, rattle, and clank of the loco
motive.
"Well, well I'll do it," he replied,
as he slowly undid his tobacco pouch
and began to fill his short pipe,
though 1 don't like to go over the
story. To this day there's always some
when I think of it.
"You see, boys, the hands that
worked this punch in those days came
near being the hands of a widow then,
and my Carl and Julia weren't born yet,
though you might even then have called
me Stout Franz"
But what's that to do with it, un-
Gle 2" asked the circle.
"Well, then, In the d-'s name,
light up your plagued elegant cigars
again. They suit you dolls in glass
cases, as the short pipe suits us stout
fellows under the free heavens. Pass
the glasses this way, and then hold your
jaw till get through.
/" 1t was upon New Years eve, in the
year 1S45, thirty years ago, and a devil
of a'storm, driving snow and sleet mixed
together. was young fellow; I'd
been married about year. You know
the station is horrible place for SER
vice. Let a storm come which way it
will, it always sweeps clean across the
square that's open and level as the top
of this table. In toward the town there
is little cut with two tracks, one or the
other of which always chokes up in the
first hour of a drifting snow. Just as
you get through the cut, in the third
house in Garden street, behind the oil
mills that we often cursed for nuisance,
because we always had to shut off steam
going by for fear of the sparks from the
chimney catching in the shingle roof, ]
lived with my Louise and Franz, just
born, who is superintendent now over
at Rudrich's.
$50, on Sylvester-eve, 1S45, came
into the station with heavy freight
train from Griesthal, after standing fol-
fourteen hours on the engine in storm
at six below. 1 was frozen stiff as al
icicle, and glad enough, you bet, to ge
hold of the Sylvester punch. 1t was get
ting dusk already as I came in, ant
through the whirl of glistening flakes
saw the station with its hundreds Oh
hundreds of lights, like a huge Christ
mas-box. A poor Christmas box fo
me! There were collected through tn,
holidays regular town of cars, some
thing like 500 of them, and they got t.
be all made up so that everything coulC
be off directly after New Years. Hard
ly had 1 got off my engine in the engine
house when up comes the station master
and says to me
"' Hauser is taken sick, and you vii
have to take No. 3 III his place.
"'Ten thousand thunders Z said /
but 1 hope it won't last till midnight
Mr., Station master, for then / must b
at home, or there's n.luck for the ne,
year.
sFiddlesticks 7 said he; 'only 20,
be sure you're on hand, and away he wa
gone in the driving snow.