The Northern Pacific farmer. [volume] (Wadena, Minn.) 1878-1885, 1884-10-09
EATING 0IRI


:. Few j people Who have never been on
lie verge l,s 81 starvation, can ealizsa what
the p pan $ Of hunger win bring = man
to. There are people, who are board
at cheap boarding houses who have
some faint realization: Of hunger, as is
shown when they take meal at ho-
tel Then they reach for everything
shat is in their sight, and their eyes roll,
in frenzy, and you can watch them and
imagine what they would DO i hard
pressed and no food for. ten days.
Right here at home there have been,
narrow escapes from cannibalism when
trains have been showed in for week.
Only a couple Of years ago q train
was showed in west Of St. Paul,
and for four days there was no: food
except the cotton waste that is used to
oil the engines and a barrel of shell
oysters. After all the food was
gone, and the :! travelling, men had
eaten the leathern fire. buckets and
chewed the sustenance out Of the plush
chushions, they held a consultation in
the baggage car, and decided to kill and
eat y girl in the rear coach. She was
about twenty years old, a school teach
er by profession, rosy checked, and just
about the right age to eat. The boys
appointed young fellow who was tray
cling fora Milwaukee tobacco house to
go to the girl and tell her that they had
decided to eat her, and to get her con-
sent. It is adelicate thing for a young
man to do to go and tell girl he had
been flirting with three days in snow
storm that the boys had decided to eat
her, but the law among travelling men
is severe, and the young man had to
obey. He. went in the coach with sink
ing heart and smile, sat down beside
her and told her he had proposal to
make, and. with a smile that was worth
two in the bush, she told him she had
mistrusted something of the kind
ever since he squeezed her hand
the evening before, when they
were playing casino. He said the
proposition he was about to make was
the harder from the fact that he had
learned in the past few days to love her
as he had never loved another woman
but in times like these we must stihe our
duty, and tear came to his eye as he
looked at the rich red cheek and the
true blue eye. He said the proposal he
was about to make was one that might
strike her as peculiar, She said that
was all right. There was no use beat
ing about the bush, and if he wanted her
to marry him she did not see any objec-
ton, and when they got back to St. Paul
she would throw up her position, and
they would be married at once. The
young man was slightly taken back, but
he said that was all right, and he would
be the. happiest man on earth, and he
threw his arms around her neck and be-
gan kissing her. The travelling men in
the baggage car were looking through
the door at the young fellow and the
girl, and wondering if he was going to
be all winter about it, and when they
saw him kissing her, they thought his
hunger had overcome him and he was
taking q meal out of the best place,
and it made them mad and they
went in the rear car to demonstrate
with him. When they got to the rear of
the car he had quit kissing her, and she
had opened"a big basket filled with
cold chicken and everything good, and
spread lunch, and as they came along
she said: Gentlemen, assist US at
our wedding~breakfast. Your friend
and myself are to be married when we
get to St. Paul" The boys took hold
and helped eat the lunch, and congratu-
lated the young fellow, though they re.
primanded him for turning traitor at
serious moment, but he pulled out q box
of cigars and they smoked for little
time, when relief engine was heard to
whistle, and in an hour the stalled train
hauled out Of the snowdrift and on the
way to st. Paul, and that evening the
cannibal and his victim were married
and the assistant connibals were wit
nessses. The young people are keep
ing house now, and no doubt the stories
Of Greedy and his men will cause them
to remember the great snow-storm
when they came SO near eating each
other.