Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-11-07
TRAVELLING THEN AND NOW.
Nye Contrasts the Old and New Styles of
Dining on the Road.

The subjects OF meals, lunch counters
dining cars and buffet cars came up the
other day incidentally. had ordered a
little breakfast in the buffet car-not so
much because | expected to get anything
but because liked to eat in a car and have
all the other passengers glazing at me. l
did not know which affords me the most
pleasure-to sit for a photograph and be
stabbed in the cerebellum with cast iron
prong, to be fed in the presence of a mixed
company of strangers, or to be called on
without any preparation to make farewell
speech on the gallows.
However, | got my breakfast after a
while. The waiter was certainly the most
worthless, trifiing half-asleep combination
of Senegambian stupidity and poor white
trash, Incidence and awkwardness that |
ever saw. He brought in everything ex-
cept what wanted, and then finished by
upsetting the little cream pitcher in my
lap. He did not charge for the cream. He
threw that i'll.
So all the rest of the Journey l was
trying TO eradicate cream dado from
my rantaloons. 1t made me mad,
because those pantaloons were made by
request Besides, | haven't got pantaloons
to squander in that way. To some pair
of pantaloons more or less is nothing, but
it is much to me.
There was a porter on the same train
who was much the same kind of furniture
as the waiter. He slept days and made up
berths all night. Truly, he began making
up berths at Jersey City, and when he got
through about daylight it was time to I'M
make them again. All night long could
hear him opening and shutting the berths
like a concertina. He sang softly to him
self all night long:
You must camp little in the wilderness,
And then Wen all go home"
When in repose he was generally asleep
with a whisk broom in one hand and the
other hand extended with the palm up,
waiting tor dividend to be declared
He generally slept with his mouth open,
so that you could read his Utmost thoughts,
and when | complained to HIM about the
way my bunk felt he said he was sorry, and
wanted to know which cell | was in.
| rode years ago over a new stage line
for several days. 1t was through an al
most trackless wilderness, and the service
hadn't been expedited then. 1t was not
a star route, anyhow. The Government
seemed to think that the man who man
aged the thing ought not to expect help so
long as he had been such fool asterisk it.
Give minutes intermission for those
who wish to be chloroformed)
The stage consists of buck board 1t
was one of the first buckboards ever made,
and the horse was amond the first turned
out. The driver and myself were the pas
sengers.
When it got to be about dinner time,
asked the driver if we were not pretty near
the dinner station. He grnnted. He
hadn't said a word since we started.
was told that ba had baaD JiSanOAiptpJ
in love. A half breed woman named No
Wayne had led him to believe that she
loved him, and that if it had not been for
her husband she would have gladly been
the drivers bride. SO the driver assassi-
mated the disagreeable husband of No
Wayne, besides doing his other work.
Then he went to the ranch and claimed his
bride, but she was not there. She had
changed her mind and married cattle
man, who had just moved on to the range
with 4 Government mule and branding
iron intending to slowly work himself into
the cattle business.
So this driver was a melancholy man.
He only made one remark to me during
that long fortv-mile drive through the
wilderness. About dinner time he drove
the horse under a quaking asp tree, tied
nose bag of oats over its head and took
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
troduced one corner of the bacon and
bread in among his whiskers. Then he
made the only remark that he uttered
while we were together. He said
Pardner, dinner is now ready in the
dining-car.' BILL NYE.