The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-10-02
Wide Awake on a Sleeper.

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER contrib
utes to the last number of Good Com
pG1ay a sketch of his ride in the Pullman
sleepers on his way from Connecticut to
Chicago. When he awoke from his first
nights rest on the sleeper, it was early
morning in Eastern New York, and the
coach had stopped in front of a farm
house. ..... y.
The occupants Of the house and sta
bles gave no signs of awakening. Per-
haps they heard in their morning doze
the accustomed whirr and halt of the
Pacific Express at that hour, but didn't
give a thought to the freight of immortal
souls at their door, that car load OF
beauty and wealth, and, perhaps, gen
ious, certainly of ambition, which would
never pass that way again. Then he
wonders who in the house would be astir
first, the hired man arousing the maids
by the CHATTER of his big boots on the
stairs, or the kitchen maid stealing
down and fiinging open the back door
opening upon the orchard to sniff the
blooming clover; cor would the old
farmer come grunting out of his cham
Der on the lower floor, throw weather
eye to the east from the front porch, and
then stump about to rouse the sluggish
household The day depends upon the
beginning, and how would the family
life begin this morningp Perhaps the
young lady, home on her vacation from
Vassar, was at this moment peeping
through the blinds of the second-story
window, taking the scent of the honey
suckle, the blossoms of which she could
reach by leaning little over the sill. 1t
is out OF just such retreats that the raw
ing beauties come. Perhaps her brother
who is not to be called if he sleeps till
noon-has brought a comrade home
with him from Union, and the co-educa-
ton of the sexes will go on after all in
the Mohawk farmhouse.
Perhaps the young lady was listen
ing-in semi. consciousness on her
snowy pillow-to the bewildering and
inspiring overture of hundred birds in
the clump of NAPLES on the slope below
her window. The air was full of this
concert in the silence that ensued on the
pause of the train, and it was this ju-
bllant bird-singing that caused me to
raise the curtain. OF course, had no
premonition of this charming family,
whose acquaintance / should never
make. A low stone wall ran along the
roadside, supporting the terrace, and
draped in vines fresh with dew. 1t was
an emblem to me of the solidity and
grace of this retiring family.
81 was beginning to build upon this
idea, and regretting that some of the
most attractive places in this world are
to us only water-stations, places of de-
parture, when the creak of the coup
lings and the jerk of the car announced
the jar and the swing of our continued
travel, and the young woman from Vas
sar became like any other sweet girl
graduate, whose aggregate existence in
the world fills us with a gentle pain at
the breyity of time and the want of OPP
portunity.
81 know of no other place like the
lower berth of a sleeping-car for medi-
tation, doing and happiness in the ear
ly morning. To look at the flying land.
scape from your pillow is not the same
thing as looking at it when you sit up
right. You do not seem to be Fastening
forward yourself, but the world is com.
ing to meet you, and coming in hurry.
You feel that you are being jerked GA
ward, but you see the clouds, the masses
of trees, the farm houses and the fences
rushing the other way, in kind of COM
motion that is urgent. The liveliness
and the stir of preparation that l had
noticed in the upper sky while we tar
ried with the birds and the Vassar girl,
now all took one direction. The trees
were as mobile as the clouds. The strip
OF sky and earth visible was extended in
depth to me but narrowed, fattened, if
L may say so, and become panoramic in
character like strip of canvas rapidly
drawing along. And every moment as
it fled by the shadows were growing
fainter and the light in the East was
vulgarizing the scene, till the illusion of
a newly-created earth was quite gone
and recognized the world as | knew
it, possessed and utilized, actually
named, every foot of it, as such coun-
try or such town, or such a street and
road. The world was astir. Man had
come upon the scene. How much man.
hood and independence was there in
these farm houses and villages we were
encountering with every revolution Of
the wheelpS