The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1882-10-19
Giving IN. main track to venus.

From the Laramie Boomerang.l
eyes, said the conductor. biting of
the tip of a cigar, and slowly scratching a
match on his leg, I've seen a good deal
of railroad life that's interesting and ex
citing in the twenty years that I've been
twisting brakes and slamming doors for
q living.
''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 to any one. Ithas caused
me more misery than any enc thing that
ever happened to me in my official ca
reer.
Sometimes even now, aftrr lapse of
many years, awake in the night with
the cold drops of agony standing on my
face and the nightmare upon me with its
terrible surroundings, as plain as on the
memorable night 1t occurred.
81 was running extra on the Union
Pacific for conductor who was an old
friend of mine, and who had gone south
on a vacation.
cat about 780, as near as 1 can re-
member, we were sailing along all COM
Portable one evening, with a straight
stretch of track ahead for ten or fifteen
miles, running on time, and everybody
feeling tip-top, as overland travellers do
who are acqusinted with each other and
feel congenial. All at once the train sud
denly slowed down, ran in an old siding,
and stopped.
"Of course / got out and ran ahead OF
the engine to see what the matter was.
Old Antifat, the engineer, had gone
down, and was on the main track looking
ahead TO where, twinkling along about
six or seven miles down the road, appar-
emily, was the headlight of an approach
ing train. 1t was evidently wild for
nothing was due that we knew of at that
hour.
However, we had been almost mir
aculously saved from a frightful wreck
by the engineers watchfulness, and
everybody went forward and shook old
Antifat by the hand and cried and thank
ed him till it was the most affecting scene
for a while that / ever witnessed. 1t was
as though we had stopped at the very
verge of a bOttomless chasm, and every
body was crying at once, till it was a
kind of cross between a revival and q
picnic.
after we had waited about half an
hour, should say, Tor the blasted train
to come up and pass us, and apparently
she was no nearer, a cold, clammy sus-
plcion began to bore itself into the
adamantine shell of my intellect. The
more I thought of it the more
unhappy l felt. l almost wished
that l was dead. Cold streaks ran
up my back, followed by hot streaks. ]
wanted to go home. l wanted to be
| xuh a
great, throbbing. work-day world could
not see me.
81 called Antifat to one side and said
something to him. He swore softly to
himself and kicked the ground and looked
at the headlight still glimmering in the
distance. Then he got on his engine
and yelled AN aboard T In few mo
ments we were moving again, and the
general impression was that the train
ahead was side-tracked and waiting fol
US, although there wasn't side track
within twenty miles, except the one We
had just left.
at was never exactly clear to thu
passengers where we passed tina
wild train, but didn't explain to them
l was too much engrossed with my
surging thoughts.
81 never felt my own inferiority 81
much as did that night. l never 81
fully realized what mere speck man il
upon the bosom of the universe.
When surveyed the starry vault o.
heaven and considered its illimitabl,
space, where, beyond and stretching OF
and on forever, countless suns are PLACED
as centers, around which solar SYSTEM
are revolving in their regular orbits, eacl
little world peopled, perhaps with it
teeming millions of struggling humanity
and then the other and mightier system
of worlds revolving about these system
till the mind is dazed and giddy with tn
mighty thought and then whei
l compared all this universal mag
niicence, this brilliant aggre
cation of worlds and syt
TENS of worlds, with one poor grovelin
worm of the dust, only little, insight
caut atom, only a poor, weak, erring
worthless, fallible. blind, cropping raj
DAD conductor, with my train PEACEFUL
,ide-tracked in the gathering gloom an
patiently waiting for the planet Venus +
pass on the main track. There wa
something about the somber picture tina
has overshadowed my whole life, an
made me unhappy and wretched Will
others were gay.
Sometimes Antifat and myself NEE
at some liquor restaurant and SILENT
take something in memory of our gres
sorrow, but never mention it. We neve
; tear open the old ranking wound @
laugh over the night we politely CAV
the main track to Venus, while we stoo
patiently on the siding"