The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-04-21
THE CONDUCTORS STORY.


think it is Emerson who says:
"When you pay for your ticket, and
get into the car, you have no guess what
good comp any you shall find there. You
buy much that is not rendered in the
bill"
I have found this remark eminently
true on several occasions, particularly
when my lifelong friend Ruth bears me
company.
Ruth is the most unconventional of
women. She travels as she does every
thing else with whole-souled earnestness,
and finds bread where most people could
gather only stones. Thus being recently
in the rear of the car of the long train,
she preferred standing upon the plat
form and drinking in at one draught that
magnificent valley of the Sacramento,
through which we seemed flying, then
by tantalizing sips, as one has to do
from behind narrow car-window.
I followed her. I always do. And
holding on to the narrow railing, we felt
somewhat like two lost comets whirling
through space. Soon the door behind
us banged, and gentleman in the mid
beautiful as Edwin Booths, and waist
Of FallsSaffian dimensions, Joined us.
He beamed on us almost literally. From
the dimple in his fair, soft chin to the
ring OF brown, silky hair which, lay upon
his broad. smooth forehead, the express
sion scintillated with intelligent good
nature. Withal, there was such retro
spective background to the sunny bright
ness that, after few common-places,
Ruth, the daring, earnest, impudent
creature, said, looking up meanwhile
into his face with smile so honest and
kindly that he would have been Ber-
serker not to have reflected it,
"Sir, permit me to remark that you
are physical ireongruity."
mot so bad as that madame, I hope.
am merely a conductor, as by this
time you have discovered, and a pretty
well balanced one Independent of my av-
oirdupois."
"But your thoughtful face, sir, that
is what perplexes me. 1t should belong
to body but one-third the weight of
yours" suggested Ruth, the wise disci-
pie of Lavater.
MY face is all right, he replied strok-
ing his cheeks and chin with an air OF
marvellous self-complacency. 1T stop
ped growing ten years ago, but it is here,
here" touching the region of his dia-
phragm with the tip OF his plump fore
finger, that contentment and rare good
luck shows itself. Once I was as thin as
Peter Schemmel's shadow, and" he
paused, looked into Ruth's clear gray
eyes as If he would sound her souls
depths am strangely tempted to tell
you my bit of romance, for there is a
long stretch ahead, and you look like
one of the kind to enjoy o touch of ma
ture. Isn't it so?"
The conductor had struck the very
for q veritable story, told in such an I'M
conventional way, to be told, too, under
such peculiar circumstances would be an
added spice, and thus we besought him
Immediately yield to the temptation.
II am an old stager," he said at last.
"At least it was as far back as the spring
of 80 that, with blanket strapped upon
my back, fifty cents in my pants pocket,
and the biggest stock of hope and I'M
tried energy that ever made lads
heart as hight as balloon, tramped
along here in my search for the
gold diggin's.' My ambition was higher
than those buttes yonder, by thousands
Of feet, and the top was to be capped
with solid gold, pointing, as he spoke,
to the three singular and isolated peaks
we were just then passing, known as the
Marysville Buttes, whose volcanic
heights looked as inaccessible to us as
their peaks seemed brown and barren.
1T appears to me" said Ruth, meas
uring the almost perpendicular sides Of
those lofty and mysterious hills, that
when q man aspires to touch the sky he
would want higher guerdon than mere
gold, not, however, that hold the metal
in contemDt."