The Portland daily press., 1878-10-11
Corresponding Burlington Hawkeye.l ]

Three People Always Met on the Train.
Coming down on the Minnesota and st. Louis
railroad to-day, glanced my hawk eyes along
the coach, and 10, L saw the woman who is
afraid of the dust. She pulled down the win
dow and made ready to suffocate. Then she
kpotted a handk erchief closely around her
neck-no she pinned it; woman never ties
anything that she can pin; then she tied
double veil over her hat and face. She sat in
the middle of the seat and drew her duster
tightly around her. She looked at her feet
from time to time, and sighed gloomily when
she saw the dust was clustering arouud them.
She rode from Minneapolis to Waseca and
never moved never looked out of the window
and only spoke once. A sociable passenger,
thinking she looked kind of desolate, said
"How kind O. coolin' an refreshin' like it is to
see these clear lakes all around u.s. when the
day is so clear
Ard she said: ''The dust il perfectly awful
And she !shuddered.
1 have always noticed that the dustier ard
grimier get on train, the more vicious and
hateful feel toward the people who keep
themselves neat and clean.
Just behind this woman 1 saw the woman
| whr. - ,--e.s ealli,r 70 r,iaras she came to
| the station little late, and had to make q
rush for tue train. When she reached her seat
| her hat fell off. She got it oD, but it toppled
over to one side, and when she tried to straight
| en- it up, her hair came tumbling down. She
! lost her ticket twice before the conductor
reached her, and would have lost it again if he
had not taken it away from her. She reached
up to put the bundle in the rack above her
hure No h1tto ofr
and stuck her fingers on four pins in her dress
before she could find one that she dared TO take
out to repair the damage. Then, Just as she
thought she had got comfortably settled, her
little hand valise, packed to bursting with
enough things to load Saratoga trunk to the
muzzle, exploded, and she nearly worked her,
| self into fragments getting it together again.
Then by the time she got the valise shut up
her hat tumbled off again, and by the time she
got the hat straightened back into its place her
hair tumble 1 down again, and as soon as she
| got her hair twist ID up and harpooned it with
| a couple of hairpins the valise went off, aud
| when she got off at New Prague she tucked
| the gasping valise under her arm and tried to
| corral her topping hat and wandering hair
| with one hand, and as she went fluttering and
| struggling into the depot, one couldn't help
| thinking that it would be safer and more con-
venient to run her in sections AID flag her
| against everything 1 have seen this woman
| on several other trains, and she has never been
able to keep herself together. There seems
| TO be more average humanity about her than
| there is about her Deater sister She isn't so
| aggravating, but she keeps you in state of
| agonizing suspense, for you never know where
1 she is going to give way next
| Moreover, saw the boy who wanted drink
| "a restless. questioning, uneasy, thirsty boy.
| He let the window tall on bis fingers before
| the train had gone mile. He stood out on
| the platform until he was incrusted two inches
deep with ashes and dust aud cinders. He
1 went to the water-cooler and got drink; then
| he came back and told his uother he was hot,
| and went back and got another dsink. He
| drank about four times per mile, seldom Of
| tener, unless hs was seized with sudden un,
| controllabe spasm of thirst. If he was drink
| ing, and somebody else came after drink, the
| boy would suddenly seize the cup be had just
| set down aud refill it. and drink as though he
| had wrapped his stomach in the desert of Sd
hara, glarlng suspiciously over the top Of the
| cnp at the waiting passenger as he drank.
/ When he was in his seat, he watched the aisle
| narrowly, and IT he saw any passenger Ret up
and move toward the water-cooler, he would
| jump up and race for it. Ii he got there first,
| he would drink aud snore over the cup until
| the thirsty traveller forgot what he went down
there after. People began to wonder how
much the boy was gsuged for, and if he wasn'c
| rather strainng his capacity. The remotest
hint or suggestion was enough to send him to
the cooler. When the train ran over a creek
the water made him think of his thirst. When
it ratified over long stretch of dry prairie, the
|
the supply of water would give out before the
boy was filed up, and he was rather small
boo too. His interior circumference, think.
must have enclosed an area double in extent to
that inclosed by the exterior belt Near Watesca
we ran nearly mile without the boy making a
stop at the tank. grew very nervous now, for
L was fearful that during such an unheard of
abstinence from water his pumps would run
dry, rust out, and he might blow up. So
leaned over the edge of the seat and said care
lessly. "By George. l am thirsty. | wonder if
there is any water on this carr"
You want to understand me now, as record.
ing very plainly, and without any mental reser-
walton, the fact that the boys mother sitting
beside. him, was no fool. Her eyes snapped
| when she heard my careless and innocent re-
| mark; she took in every syllable of it, and she
| turned on me in a fl ash with 81 wish you would
| mind your own business and let my boy alone. u
| A low murmur of applause went through the
| car little of it for the mother, some of it for
the charity bog, but most of it for me. She
suppressed y oprs truly most effectually bat il
was too lat4. Long before she finished the
brief sentence her boy was down at the water.
cooler holding his eyes tight shut to keep the
water from running out of them, while ht
| flooded his system as though he had taken 9
contract to keep up perennial Baptist revival
| Inside himself