Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1881-07-14
The wounded President.
EmersOnia.
EMERsoNrA, Colorado, July LIST, 1881


EmersOnia.
EMERsoNrA, Colorado, July LIST, 1881.
Ed. Register
Although I did not intend, and did
not promise, to write anything for the
REGISTER on this trip, l thought from
the peculiar way you looked down at
me over your spectacles, when I babe
you good-by, that you felt like saying:
"Confound the fellow! why don't he
say he'll write. No matter whether
sense or nonsense-'twill help fill, all
the same" So the sight of your pray
erful look on that occasion has been
haunting me and troubling my con-
away by saying to myself: "Business
first, pleasure next, then. Well, who
ever thinks of an editor? Let him stuff
his paper with secondhand victuals
this hot weather-hanged if I'll write!
I've had my nose to the grindstone'
for the last three or four years, until
there's but little left" Then it occur
red to me that it would not do to try to
demonstrate how badly 1 was worn out
Ivy putting my nose In evidence, and
that after all it might be the safer and
moro neighborly thing to say a word or
two when l got sufficiently out of the
dust to get my eyes shovelled open az
ter thousand-mile trip. Dusts Did
/ speak the pestiferous word? l wish
felt ut liberty to swear the balance of
this sheet out! No able-bodied swear
or could do the subject justice in less
space. It was hot when left lronton,
the sw eetest, prettiest, coolest little city
on the continent; 1t was hotter, and
"mighty" dusty in st. Louis; 1t was
still hotter and dustier in Kansas City;
and all out through Kansas, through
Colorado, until got up here in the
mountains, the heat was equal to q
steam bath, and the dust-deep, dark,
and blinding-with the coal-soot and
smoke, rolled In dense volumes merci-
;lcssly in upon US day and night!
When that train-load of passengers
got to Pueblo and to Denver, IL would
have taken first-class naturalist, or q
.coroner's jury. to have determined
whether we were Saxons, Indians. or
Huttsntots. I'll swear to you on the
Koran that was not sure myself. I
had lost all recollection Of former civil
;ization: and would as readily believed
that was Zulu as Feegee! 1t was
was all the same to MEL felt barbar.
.ous all the same.
It was o great source Of pleasure to
me that everybody else on the train
felt as happy as did. All my pious
Iesignation(9) did not suffice to restrain
the barbarians on the train from heap.
ang anathenaas, excavations, and male
ELECTIONS, most un-pious, on the heads of
the fellows who had undertaken to run
the weather, and comets, and conjunc
tions, and things. lately. How pray
cd for an able-bodied missionary! He
would have needed huge cane to have
suppressed that train of blinded, stew
ed, roasted, passengers.
.'Bless me. but It's pleasant
Riding on the rail-"
Yes, thank you-but would soon-
er take mine astride a pine rail, with
my hands securely tied above my
head! I could pray more contentedly
that way!
lam glad was not on a pleasure
trip for then should have denounced
myself as fool for leaving the green
hills of Southeast Missouri in the heat
of summer on a railroad trip!
Never but once, since this boy was a
baby, did see such dust as envel-
oped us on this trip. That was in 1858
or 1859, think. lived beside tho
road in Arcadia. 1t was August or
September. No rain had fallen for
several weeks. The heavy coal-wag-
ons had ground the road into impalpa-
BILE dust six inches deep, and 80 fine
and dry that it would instantly close
up to level over every track, 80 that
the unluck pedestrian, though ever 80
careful, was enveloped in dust. Well,
( was in my front yard digging at some
thing-most likely q potato for break
fast. lYou see was smart tdose days)
The sun had just shot his first golden
rays sthwsrt the dewy landscape,
and the crystal drops upon flower md
leaflet were laughing In the soft light
of the newborn day. when I heard an
unearthly upr0ae I'D the road q few
hundred yards. Was 1t on earth
quake? Was it aoaae deHi.god than
dering along and beating that dust
bedeviled road with nonaerosity that
caused the earth to trembla and the
dust to fly about d:ty feet high and oil
the avenue from fence to ks.ace. 80 dsnse
that nothing could he saea but the
sweeping column Of dust rs it swept
down the road nearer and non rer and