Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1883-04-05
THE STORY OF A HEADLIGHT

yes said the conductor, biting off the
tip ofa cigar and slowly scratching match
on his leg. 1--WE seen good deal of rail.
road life that is interesting and exciting in
the twenty years that I've been twisting
brakes and slamming doors for u living.
i've seen all kinds of sorrow aud all
Kinds OF Joy-seen the happy bridal couple
starting out on their wedding tour with the
bright and hopeful future before them, and
the black-robed mourner on her wav to q
new made grave, wherein she must bury the
idol other lonely old heart.
Wealth and pinching poverty ride on The
same train, and the merry laugh of the joy-
Gus child is mingled with despairing sigh of
the aged. The great antipodes of life are
familiar to the conductor, for every day the
extremes of the world arc meeting beneath
his eye.
1--WE mutilated the ticket of many black
leg and handled the passes of all our most
eminent deadheads don't know what
walk III life is crowded with more thrilling
incidents than NINE"
Ever have any smash ups ?"
"Smash-ups? Oh, yes, several. None
however, that might not have been worse.
There is one incidentin my railroad life, :"
continued the conductor running his tongue
carefully over broken place in the wrapper
OF ms cigar, that never spoke of before
to any one. 1t has caused me more misery
and wretchedness than any one thing that
ever happened to me in my official career.
was running extra on the Union Pacif-
&c fora conductor who was an old friend of
mine, and who had gone South on vaca-
ton.
"At about d, as near as can remember
we were sailing along all comfortable one
evening, with y straight stretch of track
ahead for about fifteen miles, running on
time, and everybody feeling tip-top, us over
land travellers do who are acquainted with
each other and feel congenal. All at once
the train suddenly 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, apparently was the
headlight OF an approaching train. TWAS
evidently wild for nothing was due that
we knew of at that hour.
However, we had been almost miracu-
lously saved from frightful wreck bv the
engineers watchfulness, and everybody
went forward and shook Old Autifat by the
hand and cried and thanked him till it was
the most affecting scene for awhile that
ever witnessed. 1t was as though we had
stopped at the very verge of a bottomless
chasm. and everybody was CRYING at once.
till it was kind of cross between a re.
vival and picnic.
After we waited about half an hour. I
should say, for the blasted train to come up
and pass US, and, apparently, she was no
nearer, cold, clammy suspicion 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
| was dead. Cold streaks ran uL nv back,
followed by hot ones. WANTED to 20 home,
| wanted TO be where the hungry, prying
eyes of the great throbbing York-day world
could not see me.
Il called Antifat to one side aud said
something to him. He swore softly to him
self and kicked tine ground, and looked at
the headlight still glimmering in the dis
tance. Then he got en- his engine and
yelled, All aboardv In few moments we
were moving again, and the general impress
sion was that the train ahead was side.track.
ed and waiting for us although there wasn't
side track within twenty miles except the
one we naQ just lett. ..s ,.,f
1T was never exactly clear to the passen-
gers where we passed that wild train. but
didn't explain it to them. / was too much
engrossed with my surging thoughts. :,
Il never'felt my own inferiority SO much
as did that night. never SO fully realized
what mere speek man is upon the bosom
Of the universe.
When 1 surveyed the starry vault of
heaven and considered its illmitable space
where, beyond and stretching on and on for
ever, countless suns are placed as centres
around which solar systems are revolving
in their regular orbits. each little world
peopied, perhaps, with its teemine millions
OF struggling humanity, and then other and
m'ghtler systems of worlds revolving about
these systems till the mind is dazed and
glddy with the mighty thought; and then
'"hen compared all this universal magnifi-
cence, TINS brilliant aggregation of worlds
and systems Of worlds, with one poor,
groVeillng worm of the dust, only D little
lnsgaihcant atom, only poor, weak, erri6g,
worthless, fallible, blind, cropping railroad
conductor, with my train peacefully side
tracked IN the gathering gloom and patient
y waiting for the planet Venus to pass on
the main track, there was something about
the whole sombre picture that has over
shadowed my whole life and made me un-
happy 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 omen
the old rambling wound or laugh over the
night we politely gave the main track to
Iyo.,, la ak.