The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1881-07-16
THE CONDUCTORS STORY.
An Episode Of Bidwelrs Rar.

An Episode Of BidwelPs Bar.
l think it is Emerson who says:
"When you buy your ticket and get
into the car, you have no guess what
good company you shall find there.
You buy much that is not rendered in
the biIl.' 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 earnest
ness, and finds bread where most peo-
pie could gather only stones. Thus,
recently, being in the rear car OF the
long train. she preferred standing upon
the platform and drinking in at one
draught that magnificent valley through
which we seemed flying than by tantil-
izing sips, as one has to do from behind
narrow car-window. followed her.
/ 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 midsummer of
life, Joined us. He beamed on us most
literally. From the dimple in his fair,
soft chin to the ring of brown, silky hair
which lay upon his broad, smooth fore
head, the expression scintillated with
intelligent good nature. Withal, there
was such retrospective background to
the sunny brightness that after few
common places Ruth, the daring, hon.
est, impudent creature, said, looking
up meanwhile into his face with smile
so honest and kindly that he would
have been Berseker not to have re-
fiected it:
"Sir, permit me to remark that you
are a physical incongruity.''
mot SO bad as that, madame, hope.
l am merely conductor, as by this
time you have discovered, and pretty
well-balanced one, independent of 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 dis
ciple of Lavater.
"My face is all right" he replied.
stroking his cheeks and chin with an
air of marvellous self-complacency. ut
stopped growing ten years, but it is
here" touching the region of his dia-
phraghm with the tip of his forefnger,
THAT contentment and my good luck
show themselves. Once ] was as thin
as Peter Schemmers shadow, and"-he
paused, looking into Ruth's clear, gray
eyes as if he would sound her soul 8
depths 81 am strongly 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 touch of nat
ure. Isn't it sop
The conductor had struck the very
keynote of our needs. We were pining
for veritable California story, told in
an unconventional way, outside of
the well-read romances of Bret Harte
and the Aygonaut. To be told, too, I'M
der such circumstances would be an
added spice. and thus we besought him
to Immediately yield to temptation.
81 am an old stager," he said, "at
least as far back as the spring of 1850.
With blanket strapped upon my back,
fifty cents in my pants pocket and the
biggest stock OF hope ndunused energy
that ever made a lad s heartlight as a bal
loon, Itramped along here in my search
for the gold diggings.' My ambition
was higher than those buttes yonder by
thousands of feet, and the top was to be
capped by solid gold" pointing as he
spoke to the three singular and isolated
peaks we were just then passing. known
as the Marysville Buttes, whose vol
canic heights looked as inaccessible to
us rs their peaks seemed brown and
barren.
ut appears to me-" said Ruth, meas
uring the most PERCEPTIONS sides of those
lofty and mysterious hills, "that when
man aspires to touch the sky he would
want higher guerdon than mere gold,
not, however. that l hold the metal in
contempt"
u had, madame, and that was the
whole matter. 1 was desperately in
love-that was solemn fact expressed
in as few words as possible-and be-
lieve that she loved me. but the top oil
Mount Shasta was not more unattaina-
BILE 10 me than Jennie. Her father, an
old Philadelphia druggist, had money,
and had none. He was as proud as
Lucifer and as ambitious for his daughter
as he was proud. felt that 1 could
move a mountain if could find 8
mountain to move; so Jennie and said
good-by one afternoon under an old OAK
In Paramount Park, aud in the very
depths of my heart believed that she
would be true to me. 1t was not Sc
we're seven days ride in a palace cal
from New York to San Francisco in
those days, and the tall, slender, hungry,
penniless lad who tramped along hers
twenty-nine years ago, seeking his fort