Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1877-01-03
The Regulation Buttons.
AN ENGINEERS STORY.

Itw upon New Years eve, in the
year 1916, thirty good years ago, and a
terrible storm, driving snow and sleet
mixed together. l was young fellow /;
I'd been married about a year. You
know the station is horrible place for
service. Let storm come which way
IL will, it always sweeps clean across the
square, that's as open and level as the
top OF a 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 drifting snow.
Just as you get through the cut, in the
third house in Garden street, behind
the old oil mills that we often cursed for
nuisance, because we always had TO
shut off steam going by for fear of the
sparks frcm the chimney catching in
the shingle roof, L lived with my Lou
ise, and Franz, just born, who is super
intendent now over at Rudrich's.
So, on Sylvester eve, 1S45, / came
into the station with heavy freight
train from Griesthal, after standing for
fourteen hours on the engine in storm
At six below. l was frozen stiff as an
icicle, and glad enough to get hold Of
something warm. Ii was getting dusk
already as | came in, and, through the
whirl of glistening flakes, saw the Sta
lion with its hundreds on hundreds of
lights, like huge Christmas box. A
poor Christmas box for me! There
were collected through the holidays a
regular town of cars, something like
i've hundred of them and they'd got TO
be all made up so that everything could
be of directly after New Years. Hardly
had got off my engine in the engine
house when up comes the station mas
ter, and says 10 me:
"Hauser is taken sick, and you will
have TO take No. in his place"
"Ten thousand thunders" said /;
but hope it won't last till midnight,
for then l must be at home, or there's
III luck for the New Year"
.'Fiddlestieks ," said he; ''only you
he sure 10 be on hand" and away he
was gone in the driving snow.
thought I'd taken the matter more
10 heart than it was worth, and laid the
cold shiver that crept over my skin to
the uncanny blast that came snorting at
me as came out with the engine. The
whole air was full of fine snow, and, as
the wreaths of il drove like white ghosts
across the engine, | could hardly see
the smokestack.
Uf the light signals one caught only
now and then glimpse, red, white, or
green; of the horn and pipe signals,
what with the bowling of the wind
about the cars and car wheels, and its
singing in the telegraph wires, and the
rumbling of the cars aud the whistling
of the engines, one heard only just
enough TO be sure one had not under
stood them. OF the shouts of the men,
one could make just nothing but that
they shouted.
Then there were couple of hundred
cars being shunted about in all direc-
tions at the same time; on all sides they
came looming like great shadows out of
the darkness and thick snow, and
straight vanished in it again. The poor
switch tenders, wet to the skin, up TO
their knees in snow, sprung this way
and that between the rolling cars. You
know how a distributing station looks
of winter night. G ID only knows how
it's we're not all made mincemeat of in
the course of it, and I've all my life
long been surprised when next morn
iag l haven't heard that this one or that
one was killed on the spot.
That night then, it was right bad,
and the punch, too, may have touched
the mems heads little beforehand, for
the ranging went at fearful rate. The
cars flew so this way and that, and the
Lights went by like flashes, and every
where one heard the groaning and
clinking of the buffers crashing to
gether, and the men crept about under
and between the cars as if the wheels
were gingerbread and the buffers
downy pillows. But before all there
was n wretched little assistant station
msster-I could not bear the man, be
cause he once came very much in my
way in certain matter-but l could
not help looking in amazement as saw
his signal lantern everywhere, swing
Ing in an inch, Swinging horizontally
swinging crosswise, up, down, behind
before, and heard his sbrill voice
through all the storm. And see, I'd
Just called 10 the man as / saw him slip
NJ through two buffers, that he ought not
\ TO be so reckless, in a storm where one
Y could neither see nor hear thing, and
might slip down into the bargain. But
! he laughed at me, and called out: you
attend to your own work, Zimmerman
ali never mind me I'VE must be through
behre straightforward. forward"
and,way he was gone.
| card him still giving the ordel
"for'ard!. yonGer among my com
rades, nd heard the car chains clink
aud the. a sound-what like was 1t!