Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1881-07-07
A HEADLIGHT IN VIEW.
THE CONDUCTORS STORY OF A NIGHT TRA1
ON TIE Union PACIEtC


HEADLIGHT IN VIEW.
THE CONDUCTORS STORY OF A NIGHT TRAI.
ON THE UNION PACIFIC.
"Yes," said the conductor, biting off th'
tip of cigar and slowly scratching matct
on his leg, "Ive seen good deal of railroad
life that's interesting and exciting in th'
twenty years that have been twisting brake
and slamming doors for living.
"Ive seen all kinds ofsorrow and all kind
of joy-seen the happy bridal couple starting
out on their wedding tour with the brigh
and hopeful future before them, and th'
black-robed mourner on her way to a new
made grave wherein she must bury the lido
of her lonely old heart.
wealth and pinching poverty ride or
the same train, and The merry laugh of the
healthy, joyous child, is mingled with tht
despairing sigh of the aged. The great an
tipodes of life are familiar to the conductor
for every day the extremes Of the world art
meeting beneath his eye
"I've mutilated the ticket of many black
leg, and handled the passes Of all our most
eminent dead.heads. don't know wha
walk of life is more crowded with thrilling
incidents than mine."
"Ever have any smash-ups?"
"Smash.ups! Oh, yes, several of them
None, however, that couldn't have been good
deal worse. ...... .. H..
"There is one incident in my railroad life,
continued the conductor, running his tongue
carefully over broken place in the wrapper
of his cigar, "that never spoke of before tc
any one. 1t has caused me more misery and
wretchedness than any one thing that ever
happened to me in my official career.
"Sometimes even now, after the lapse OF
many years, / 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.
II was running extra on the Union Pa.
ci6c for conductor who was an old friend
of mine, and who had gone South on vaca'
tion for his health.
"At about 73O, as near as can remem-
ber, we were sailing along all comfortably
one evening with straight stretch of track
ahead for ten or fifteen miles, running on
time and everybody feeling tip-top, as over
land travellers do who get acquainted with
each other and feel congenial. All at once
the train suddenly slowed down, ran in on an
old siding and stopped.
"Of course, 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 head
light of an approaching train. 1t was evi.
dently wild, for nothing was due that we
knew of at that hour
However, we had been almost miraculous
ly saved from a frightful wreck by the en-
gineer's watchfulness, and everybody went
forward and shook old .Antifat by the hand
and cried and thanked him until it was the
most affecting scene for while that ever
witnessed. 1t was as though we had stopped
on the very edge of bottomless chasm, and
everybody was laughing and crying at once,
till it was kind Of a cross between a revival
and picnic.
"After we had waited about half an hour,
I should say, for the blasted train to come
up and pass us, and apparently she was no
nearer, a cold, clammy suspicion began to
bore itself into the adamantine shell of my
intellect. The more thought oft, the more
unhappy felt almost wished that was
dead. Cold streaks ran up my back follow.
ed by hot ones. l wanted to 60 home. |
wanted to be where the hungry, prying eyes
of the great, throbbing work-day world could
not see me.
II called Antifat one side and said some
thing to him. He swore softly to himself
and kicked the ground, and looked at the
head light glimmering in the distance. Then
he got on his engine and yelled All aboard
In few moments we we're moving again, and
the general impression was that the train
ahead was side.tracked and waiting for US,
although there wasn't a side-track within
twenty miles except the one we had just left.
1T was never exactly clear to the passen.
gers where. we passed that wild train, but l
didn't explain it to them. was too much
engrossed with my surging thoughts. .
II never felt my own inferiority so much
as did that night. l never so fully realized
what mere speck man is upon the bosom of
the universe.
"When / surveyed the starry vault of
heaven and considered its illimitable space,
where, beyond and stretching on and on
forever, countless suns are placed in centres,
around which solar systems are revolving IN
their regular orbits, each little world peopled
perhaps with its teeming millions of strug-
Cling humanity, and then other mightier
systems of worlds revolving about these sys
TENS till the mind is dazed and giddy with
the mighty thought; and then when l com,
pared all this universal magni6cence, this
brilliant aggregation of worlds and systems of
worlds with one poor groveling worm Of the
dust, only little insignificant atom, only q
poor, weak, erring, worthless, fallible, blind,
cropping railroad conductor, with my train
peacefully side.tracked in the gathering gloom
and patiently waiting for the planet Venus
to pass on the main track, there was some.
thing about the whole sombre picture that
has overshadowed my whole life and made
me unhappy, and wretched, while others
were gay.
"Sometimes Antifat and myself meet at
some LIQUID restaurant and silently take
something in memory Of our great sorrow,
but never mention it. We never tear open
the old ranking wound or laugh over the
night we politely gave the main track to
Venus while we stood patiently on the siding. y
THE APPROACH OF DEATH.-In Apple
toms Cyclopedia, under the caption "Death,' u
occurs the following:
As life approaches extinction, insensibility
supervenes numbness and disposition to
repose, which does not admit of the idea Of
suffering Even in those cases where the &C.
tivity of the.mnd remains to the last, and
where nervous sensibility would seem to con-