Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-10-19
TRAVELLING THEN AND NOW.
Bill Nyc Contrasts the Old and New
styles of Dining on the Road.


The subject of meals, lunch counters,
dining cars and buffet cars came up the
other day incidently.- i had ordered a
little breakfast in the buffet car, not SO
much because Iexpected to get anything
but because / liked to eat in car and
have all the other passengers glaring at
me. | do not know which affords me
the most pleasure-to sit for photograph
and be stabbed in the cerebellum with
cast-iron prong, to be fed in the presence
of mixed company of strangers, or to
be called on without any preparation to
make farewell speech on the gallows.
However, | got my breakfast after
while. The waiter was certainly the
most worthless, trifling, half-asleep com
bination of Senegambian stupidity and
poor white trash Incidence and awkward
ness that l ever saw. He brought in
everything except what | wanted, and
then wound up by upsetting the little
charge for the cream. He threw that in.
So all the rest of the journey 1 was
trying to eradicate cream dado from my
pantaloons. 1t made me mad, because
those pantaloons were made for me by
request Besides, haven't got panta-
looms to squander in that way. To some
u pair CT pantaloons more or less is moth
ing, but it is much to me.
There was porter on the same train
who was much the same kind of furn-
ture as the waiter. He slept days and
made up berths all night. Truly, he be-
gan making up berths at Jersey City, and
when he got through, about daylight, it
was time to begin to unmake them again.
All night long | could hear him opening
and shutting the berths like a con-
certina. He sang softly to himself all
night long:
You must camp a little in the wilderness
And then we'll all go home"
When in repose he was generally
asleep with whisll broom in one hand
and the other hand extended with the
palm up, waiting for dividend to be de-
clared
He generally slept with his mouth open,
SO that you could read his inmost
thoughts, and when / complained to him
about the way my bunk felt he said he
was sorrow and wanted to know which cell
| was in.
l rode years ago over a new stage line
for several days. 1t was through an
almost trackless wilderness, and the SER
vice hadn't been "expedited' then. 1t
was not star route, anyhow. The gov
eminent seemed to think that the man
who managed the thing ought not to ex-
pect help SO long as he had been such a
fool asterisk it.
Five minutes intermission for those
who wish to be chloroformed.
! r
1t was one OF the first buckboards ever
made, and the horse was among the first
turned out also. The driver and myself
were the passengers. / will try to draw
a picture of the driver from memory. |
am not much OF an artist, but | am pas
sionately fond OF trying. Many who have
seen my art exhibit in an old barn that
have reserved for that purpose say that it
has a depth and irrelevancy rarely seen
inside of barn.
In the picture l do not show the buck
board and horse for two reasons. First,
do not know how to draw horse, and
secondly, do not know how to draw n
blackboard. A friend OF mine, who is liv-
ing with his second wife under an as
sumed name, says it would be good
idea to get man who knew how to draw
the horse, and then let the horse draw
the blackboard.
In the illustration, the gentleman with
the whip is the driver. The young man
sitting beside the driver, who looks as
though he wanted the earth, is the au-
thor OF these lines, drawn from memory.
leave the gentle reader to study and
compare the two faces, and then say
which OF them shows the most character,
force, intelligence and spirituele. When
it got to be about dinner time asked the
driver ii we were not pretty near the din
ner station. He grunted. He hadn't
said word since we started. Look care
fully ut his face, and you will see at once
that he is surly, morose and taciturn
man. | was told that he had been dis
appointed in love. A half-breed woman
named No-Wayno had led him to believe
that she loved him, and that il it had not
been for her husband she would have
gladly been the drivers bride. So the
driver assassinated the disagreeahle hus-
band of No-Wayno, besides doing his
other work. Then he went to the rancho
and claimed his bride, but she was not
there, She had changed her mind and
married II cattleman, who had just moved
on to the range with Il government mule
and branding iron, intending to slowly
work himself into the stock business.
So this driver was melancholy man.
He only made one remark to me during
that long forty-mile drive through the
wilderness. About dinner time he drove
the horse under Il quaking asp tree, tied Il
nose bag of oats under its head and took
"A wad OF bread and bacon from his greasy
pocket. The bacon and bread had little
flakes OF smoking tobacco all over it, be-
cause he carried his grub and tobacco in
the same pocket For moment he in
PRODUCED one corner OF the bacon ant
bread in among his whiskers. Then h,
made the only remark that he uttered
while We We're together, lie said:
"Pardner, dinner is now ready in tn,
dining car"