The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1877-04-20

be gone nearly all day, bat some
hody'd set i'm down atore night'D
he'd come toddiin home. Some
lines think it's queer how the
men used 10 take to that baby
There was feIlers just as rough as
bears-brakemen, that'd get drunk
aud crazy with liquor and cut or
,hOor man quicker'n litenin'; ~
lection men-up in them mountains
hem section men were mighty hard
4-es. What for hghtin' aud quar-
elm hey beat Sam Hill. An' yet
there wasn't one of them chaps as
would speak q cross word to my
p4by. They was sll fond of 'im,
aud if anybody took to imposin on
i'm, why, there'd be muss quick
er'n the drop Of yer hat.
There was Bill Walker. You
didn't know Bill Walker, did you?
No! Or course you didn't. Dead
now. Left q switch open on Ian
and he run of. Never spoke after
they picked 'im up. Bill he was q
crusty old bachelor-one of them
fellers wat never sees nothin', If be
can help hisself. He didn't have no
relations, aud he was SO sot agin
everybody the boys used to say
they didn't believe he ever had q
father or mother like other folks.
He'd had hard lines in life, for q
fact, and It made i'm what they call
q mfsep-. Yes that's it-a mis-
enthrop. He seemed to have q par
ticnlar grudge for everybody he
had ever seen, and sorter general
disgust for everybody he hadn't.
Bill picked up the baby for ride
one day, and when he stopped at
the next station he was goin' round
oilin' his enjine and the little tyke
was taggerin after holdin' on to his
coat-tail and gettin' hisself ell COW
cred over with oil and grease jest
like a regelar engineer; and there
was one of the station men, as didn't
like Bill no how, aud he ses, ses he,
'Hullo, Bill is that left-hander of
your'n p
They say Bill turned ashy. He
sets down his can and reaches for
that feller-just one, square in the
jugular, and he didn't git out of
bed for ten days. One day there
come down from New York q rock
ing-horse, and May found it at the
water-tank with piece of paper
tied to the bride, n it said like
this: If Bill Walker could ever
wish for baby of his own it would
be like Charley That rocking
horse cost Bill whole months wa
ges.
One of the frat things Charley
learned to say, when he was begin
MIN to talk, was this: You see the
men on the road used to call one
another 'Pard'-short for 'psrdner.'
Charley he caught it, and he alters
called me 'Pard' "You and me is
pards, isn't we ?" he used to say an
that's what we alters called one an
other, and he went by the name of
'Chsrley Latham's pard' all over the
road.
I'D be goin' by the house on the
noon train, and leanin' out of the
cab watchin' for i'm, N he'd be ont
in front with a white rag or some
thing to wave at me, and I'd see by
the motion of his llps-I couldn't
hear for the noise of the cars-that
The was saYin, You and me is pards,
isn't we?'
As WAS teilin', Sundays 1 laid
off; n in the mornin' after break
fast, Mary would fill up basket
with some bread and butter, and
meat, and things, and we three
would go mp into the mountains
aud stay all day. We used to do
this mostly every Sunday, and so
Charley got to CALM it7shIs pard's
| day. You see he got notion it
was the best day in the week COS /
was alters home with i'm. 1 didn't
never go to church much-it was a
long ways; and then l thought
Charley weuld get as much religion
by going around in the woods, aud
among the mountains, where the
trees and leaves were so beautiful,
and the rocks so grand. as any 9TH
er way. If they don't tell us that
the Creator who made 'em all is
powerful, and good. too, there amt
no preacher can de it.
You went up to the top of Pixies
Peak the other day. I've been there
too, and I'll like to know if q chap
can go up there, among those awful
precipices and gorges, and look
miles. and see.the mountains around,
and the plains way off in front, that
don't seem to have no ena, and then
look at hisseif, and say whether he
does really amount to q row of pins.
You see | never was any Christian,
and never give Charley no SIGH
trainin', aud sometimes I think
mebbe didn't do quite right by
him. But, Lord love you; stranger,
when he went among the angels.
I'm jest certain there wasn't none
of 'em had any cleaner soul AN
what he had.
There was a place, about three
quarters of q mile from our house,
where we used to go a good deal
Sundays, and Mary would read the
Bible to US aud sing. She was q
good singer, Mary was. We used
to call the place Devils Rum 1t
was q sort of creek, and didn't
haye no water in il, 'cept after q
hard rain. 1t come down between
two high mountains, where it was
steep as could be. Wen q storm
came up I've known il in half an
hour to have six feet of water in it..
And then it would bring down big
logs, trunks of trees, and great
stones, roaring that way you could
hear il fer miles.
1t got its name because it was
such an internal place. Often I've
been woke mp at night by q heavy
shower. and I'D hear Devils Run
bowling as though il would tear
everything TO pieces. There couldn't
be no worse place fixed for the
road, if they Led hunted the whole
country through, than right there,
was sharp curve, and on the out
side of il was straight up-and-
down precipice for hundreds OF
feet, so that If train weEt off il
would be smashed into kiudlin'
wood and tenpenny nails. DEVILS
Run went underneath the track. near
the point of the curve, Though q
barrel culvert, and once there came
q hard storm, n the trees n stoaes
n so on choked mp the culvert,
which wasn't large enough, n the
water damned up and rose, till by'n
by the whole embankment gave
way, and twenty feet of the road
4 went rippin' down the mountain.