The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-05-23
LOVE AND LIGHTNING.
How the Danger to the Express
Train Was Averted.

Lefty Brooks put aside the white muslin
curtain and looked out of the little window
of the telegraph office at Smyrna station
as the afternoon accommodation pulled
and ratified up to its stopping-place.
"Who's come, sis?" spoke very young
boy, whose likeness proclaimed near kim
ship to the girl, and whose manner readily
determined him as that most unpleasant
variety of the genus, privileged brother.
Nobody you know, Sammy" replied
the sister, vainly imagining that she had
thus satisfied an inquiry born of only too
shrewd Interpretation of the expectant
glance with which her face had greeted
the incoming train. run out and get the
paper"
so, no! Billy Johnson amt running, and
of course there amt nobody there" re-
torted the boy, and with this crudely
humorous allusion to the supposed favor
with which Lefty regarded certain
young engine driver, he uncurled himself
from the table and tumbled out the door to
do her bidding.
For all Typographical purposes, Smyrna
station is but small dot on the railway
map, and its function in thelgreat economy
OF traffic and transportation is that of "a
depot of wood and water for the refresh
ment of the motive power of freight trains
The iron bond of a long single track unites
in wedlOCk two cities who quarrel like hus-
band and wife for supremacy as the COM
mercial metropolis, while similarly joined
in indisSOluble interests; and the little viii
lage, too far distant from either to share in
contingent greatness, and even lacking the
Independent Importance of a halfway sta
ton, quietly sleeps between its hills, with
its river trailing Off at one side, awakened
twice daily by the shrek of the fast ex-
press, and occasionally contributing pas
n tha lAiG pa1N 4 ion,
train. In winter there really seems no
reason for its existence, and it hibernateS,
its sub-trOpical name being Knocked by the
reigning desolaton. In summer there is
certain awakening of agriculture and u re-
appearance of natives in cotton shirts and
pantaloons. At this season, too, there is
the advent of the city scions of two of the
formerly great families of the neighboring
country, who keep green the memories of
their bucOlic ancestors by occupying the
homesteads, stately in an Old-fashioned
way, with distorted columns across
their broad fronts, that stand on the
heights at the other end of the town.
Summer it is, and the very heat of it,
when Miss Florence Van Amden shakes the
creases and the Cinders from her pongee
travelling suit, after alighting from the
train, with n weary look on her yelled face
and a begrimed novel in her gloved hand;
and Lefty, from behind her curtain, knows
that this solitary passenger is Miss Flor
ence Van Amden as well as do Tom Porter
and his sister, who have come to meet the
traveller with the family carriage For
although this lady is unaccOmpanied, she
has by no means come unheralded. Care
is necessary in the consignment of such
precious goods; and this is the reason that
Lefty, peering out from the window of the
telegraph Office, wears n face on which
realized anticipation rather than surprise
appears, as the travel-dusted figure sweeps
across the platform For Lefty is the re-
pository of all the secrets that flash from
town to town along the humming wires.
She has but to turn the switch of the little
instrument resting on her desk, and there
pour forth prices current and political
nominations, orders for arrest on their
way to outstrip the criminal in his flight,
and kindly messages of friendly appoiut-
ment brief tales of death and congratula-
tions on the coming of the first-born, all
licked out in the unsympathetic monotone
whose dots and daShes and silenceS speak
words to her trained ear.
1t is the railroad that has given SMYRNA
its telegraph; and Letty's occupation is so
generally confined to the business of the
road-to receiving orders from the train
dispatcher to "hold No. =" to "keep the
track clear for down special" or that "No.
has the right of way to marlborough"
which it is her duty to copy in triplicate
and deliver TO the station master-that n
purely social message, coming direct TO
Smyrna and stopping there, instead of
careering on to the end of the line, makes
an impression on her memory. There
have been at least a score of these unusual
messages, all relating to Miss Van Amdens
visit, which Lefty has sent to Squire
Porter's great house, until she at last be-
holds the subject of 80 much dispatching
descend from the train.
Socially considered, Miss Van Amden is
a more important subject of description
than the Telegraph operator at Smyrna