The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1881-07-15
THE CONDUCTORS STORY.
AN EPISODE OF RIDwELL's BAR,


I think it is Emerson who says:
''When you pay 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 bill
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 people
could gather only stones. Thus, recent
ly, 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 tantalizing
sips, as one has to do from behind
narrow car window.
l followed her / always do. And,
holding on to the narrow railing, we
felt somewhat like two lost comets whirl-
ing through space. Soon the door be-
hind us banged, and gentleman in the
midsummer of life, with face as classi-
cally beautiful as Edwin Booths and n
waist of Falstafiisn 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
expression scintillated with intelligent
good nature. Withal, there was such a
retrospective background to the sunny
brightness that after a few common
places Ruth, the daring, honest, impU
dent creature, said, looking up mean
while into his face with smile so honest
and kindly that he would have been
Berserker not to have reflected it:
''Sir, permit me to remark that you
are physical incongruity"
"Not so bad as that, madame, / hope
/ am merely conductor, as by this
time you have discovered, and pretty
well balanced one, independent of
avoirdupois."
"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,
stroking his cheeks and chin with an air
of marvellous self-complacency. cit
stopped growing ten years ago, but it is
here" touching the region of his dia-
phragm with the tip of his forefinger,
that contentment and my good luck
show themselves. Once was as thin as
Peter Schemmel's shadow, and''--he
paused, looking into Ruth's clear, gray
eyes as IL he would sound her souls
depths-'I 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 nature.
Isn't it so?'' zf
The conductor had struck the very key
note of -our needs. We were pining for
veritable California story, told in an un-
conventional way, outside of the we'll
read romances of Bret Harte and The
Argonaut. To be told, too, under such
peculiar circumstances would be an adj
ded spice, and thus besought him to i'm
mediatly yield to temptation.
sT am an old stager," he said. cal
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 and unused ener-
gy that ever made lads heart as light
as a balloon. I tramped 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, point
ing 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 bar
rem.
'It appears to me-" said Ruth, meas
uring the most precipitous sides of those
lofty and mysterious hills. ''that when a
man aspires to touch the sky he would
want higher guerdon than mere gold,
not, however, that 1 hold the metal in
contempt"
81 had, madame, and that was the
whole matter. / was desperately in
19ve--that was solemn fact, expressed
in as few words as possible be-
ieve that she loved me. but the top OF
Mt Shasta was not more unattainable
to me than Jennie. Her father. an old