San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-07-26
Farmers Who Take Chances.
Peck's Sun.

are smashed, and horses and drivers
killed, are not as plenty as they were
a'few years ago, but they are plenty
enough. One occurred a few weeks
ago, and the horses were killed
but the driver escaped. Two engin-
GERS were drinking coffee and eating
doughnuts at a lunch counter that
evening, when one said to the other:
Who was the farmer, Dick, that
YOU run into at the crossing? 1t
wasn't that smart Aleck that wears
the wide brimmed gray hat and
drives the bay colts, was it?"
1T was the same fellow, Ed; the
one who always tries to get across the
track ahead of a train, and then
drives off with his hat on one side, and
| looks up at the engine as much as to
say, "You cant fool your Uncle Ike"
have expected some of the boys
would kill him the last year. 1t is
always some such smarty that gets
smashed. Why, that fellow has run
those colts across my bow fifty times,
and several times have come within
four feet of knocking him into king
dom come, and 1 have been in cold
sweat every time. He got so he
would run his colts a quarter of q
mile to cross the track ahead of the
train, and seemed to think the pass
engers were admiring his bravery, but
they thought he was a blasted fool.
Several times he had a girl with him
inssthe lumber wagon, and he seemed
to think he was doing big thing to
drive right ahead of the train and
scare the girl. I have expected the
air would be full of people and bay
colts, and this afternoon he got it. 1
guess he has learned lesson. When
we picked him up out of that plough
ed field, where he lit under the wagon
with crate of live chickens, and a
key of sauerkraut, he was taken to
town; he was awfully wilted. He saw
the train, and I whistled and rang the
bell, but he whipped the team, and
just as he got on the track one of the
colts stopped, and the cow catcher
struck right between the horses and
wagon, and the colts were both killed,
and thrown in the culvert, and the
wagon was strung all along the track,
while the wagon box and the smarty
went over the fence. I stopped the
train and backed up, expecting to find
him dead, but when we lifted up the
box he was all right, only he was as
white as a sheet. The first thing he
said was that he would sue the COM
pany for damages. It was all I could
do to keep from taking him by the
neck and dragging the plowed ground
with him. 1 told him that he had
been playing smart for two years, and
now he had got it, and I hoped he
would have a little more sense after
this. He beloved like a calf when he
saw the colts were dead, and said his
father would whip him, because he
had always warned him against trying
to be hero. If it hadn't been for
killing the colts, I should have been
glad the thing happened"
well, sir" said the other engineer,
as he took another doughnut. "all
these accidents occur just by people
trying to be smart, I have seen hun
dred of farmers who would stop their
teams far enough away from the train,
so there would be no danger, but about
one in ten acts as though he owned
the earth, and if he gets the hind end
of the wagon over he thinks he has
achieved something remarkable, l
expect to kill woman out about a
hundred miles from here one of these
days. She drives an old black mare,
and I think she lays for train. She
sees the train coming, slaps the mare
with the lines and hurries on the
track, and then the old mare stops as
though she was going to eat grass,
and then the old lady looks up at me
IN the window through her spectacles,
laps the old mare some more, and
he meanders off the track just before
hit her, and the old lady looks back
at me as the engine whirls past, and
my heart is in my mouth; and she
looks just as if she thought 1 was
running that way for fun, and that 1
am an impoite, nawsty thing because
1 did not slack up for her. Some day
the marsh out there is going to have
shower of black mare, and buggy
wheels and spectacles, and there Will
be Grape on the old lady's door, and