The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1881-04-14

~ eS, SAID the conductor, Dltln1 Oh
the tip of cigar and slowly scratching
match ON his leg, '.rve seen a good
deal OF railroad life that's interesting
and exciting in the twenty Years that
I've been twisting brakes and slamming
doors for living.
"rve seen all kinds of sorrow and
all kinds of joy-seen the happy bridal
couple starting out on the wedding
tour with the bright and hopeful future
before them, and the black-robed
mourner on her way TO new-made
grave wherein she must bury the idol of
her lonely old heart.
wealth and pinching poverty ride
on the same train, and the merry laugh
of the joyous, healthy child is mingled
with the despairing sigh of the aged.
The great antipodes of life are familiar
to the conductor. for every day the ex-
tremes of the world are meeting beneath
his eye.
s'Tve mutilated the ticket of many a
black leg and handled the passes of all
our most eminent dead-heads. l don't
know what walk of life is more
crowded with thrilling incidents than
mine.'
Ever have any smash-ups?"
''Smash-ups? On, yes, several of
them. None, however, that couldn't
have been good deal worse.
There is one incident of my rail-
road life,'' continued the conductor,
running his tongue carefully over a
broken place in the wrapper of his
cigar, THAT l never spoke of before to
any one. 1t has caused me more mis-
ery and wretchedness than any one
thing that ever happened to me in my
official career.
Sometimes even now, after the
lapse of many years, l awake in the
night with the cold drops of agony
standing on my face and the horrible
nightmare upon me with its terrible
surroundings, as plain as on the mem
orable night it occurred.
81 was running extra on the Union
Pacific for conductor who was an old
friend of mine, and who had gone South
on vacation for his health.
AT about 1880, as near as can re-
member, we were sailing along all COM
Portable one evening with straight
stretch of track ahead for ten or fifteen
miles, running on time and everybody
feeling tip-top, as overland travellers do
who get acquainted with each other
and feel congenial. All at once the train
suddenly slowed down, ran on an old
siding and stopped.
"Of course, l got out and ran ahead
to the engine to see what the matter
was. Old Antifat, the engineer, had
got down and was on the main track
looking ahead to where, twinkling
along about six or seven miles down
the road, apparently, was the headlight
of an approaching train. 1t was evi-
IDENTIFY wild for nothing was due that
we knew of at that hour.
However, we had been almost
miraculously saved from frightful
wreck by the engineers watchfulness,
and everybody went forward and shook
old Antifat by the hand and cried and
thanked him till it was the most affect
ing scene for a while that l ever wit
messed. 1t was as though we had
stopped upon the very verge of a bot
tomless chasm, and everybody was
laughing and crying at once, till it was
kind of a cross between revival and
picnic.
..After we had waited about half an
hour, should say, for the blasted train
to come up and pass us, and apparent
| ly she was no nearer, cold, clammy
suspicion began to bore itself into the
adamantine shell of my intellect. The
more thought of it. the more unhappy
l felt. l almost wished that l was
dead. Cold streaks ran up my back fol-
| lowed by hot ones. l wanted to 90
home. wanted to be where the hun
CRY, prying eyes of the great, throbbing
work-day world could not see me.
| 81 called Antifat one side and said
| something to him. He swore softly to
himself and kicked the ground, and
looked at the headlight still glimmer-
inc in the distance. Then he got on
his engine and yelled All aboard In
a few moments we were moving again,
and the general impression was that the
train ahead was side-tracked and wait.
ing for us, although there wasn'ta side
track within twenty miles, except the
one we had just left.
"It was never exactly clear to the
passengers where we passed that wild
train, but didn't explain it to them
was too much engrossed with my
surging thoughts.
81 never felt my own inferiority sc
much as did that night. 1 never Sc
fully realized what a mere speck mar
is upon the bosom of the universe.
"When ] surveyed the starry vault O
Heaven and considered it's illimitablC
space, where, beyond and stretching
on and on forever, countless suns are
placed as centers, around which sola
systems are revolving in their regula
orbits, each little world peopled perbap
with it's teeming millions of strugglin;
humanity, and then other and mightie
systems of worlds revolving about thes,
systems till the mind is dazed and gidd,
!, with the mighty Thoughts; and thel
when compared all this universal mag
nificence, this brilliant aggregation o
worlds and systems of worlds, with on
poor, groveling worm of the dust, onl
little Insignificant atom, only a poor
weak, erring, worthless, fallible, blind
cropping railroad conductor, with m
, train peacefully sidetracked in tn
gathering gloom and patiently waitin
, for the planet Venus to pass on tn
main track, there was something abou
the whole somber picture that has ovel
shadowed my whole life and made IN
: unhappy, and wretched, while other
| were gay.
Sometimes Antifat and myself NEE
| at some liquid restaurant and silentl
take something in memory of our grea
| sorrow, but never mention it. We nev
er tear open the old ranking wound O
| laugh over the night we politely CAV
l the main track to Venus while we stoo
patiently on the siding. p" Bill Nye,
3 IN the Detroit Free Press.
A Jews Heroism.
t To BE brave enough to face the consS