Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1886-05-28

dDOut u ROOu zeal III Wlnu ana water.
Diu you ever happen to think, ma'am,
OF slippery winter morning, what it
would be like II you was in our business ?
There's more business goes on over your
heads these days than there is upon the
ground below | don't think folks do
think much about it. There's sight of
pity goes to sailors and such-like and |
tiremen and those and Pm not denying |
they deserve it.. But our business amt so
well understood in folks mind to feel |
sympathy for linemen. Sometimes seems
to me we have a call for it, ourselves, for
it amt very safe business. 1t amt so
much pluck-though it does take pluck
but pluck amt anything to complain
of.
Now, come morning.after such storm
as this speak about. There's ice every
where. Your steps are slippery. All the
sidewalks are covered by ashes for peril
of your bones Horses 20 down in the
street The tops of the fences and the
door knobs and all sorts of little things
are sleetcd over. The trees have crusted
up like they'd got into "A bathing suit of
ice from toe to top. The ROCKWELL folks
don't think about roofs. Thcy are all of a
glare. That's the kind of weather folks
stay indoors, if so be they can. Women
huddle round the register and say Il
guess won't go out to day" Men go to
their business in the horse-car and talk
about how slippery it is. In the evening
paper there's the accidental cOlumn-full
of how such a one Slipped on the pave
ment and how his leg was broken, or his
back was hurt.
Way down below us whilst we are at
work we see folks putting sawdust on
level places and holding on to something
whilst they go by. They look kind of
small as we look down, like creatures that
grow on something. Maybe we're out on
the caves crawling along toward the caves
| trough to gel a wire that got down acrOst
wtter-Spout !; or maybe we're droppln'
| from one roof to t'other, or were holding
on to chimney, or there's pole to climb
beyond 'em ala roOf-pole you must
climb, and you put your spurs in and 90
M cllnging to that pole, to guy wire
over or to untwist some trouble, and slip.
pery-by gracious Slippery don't tell It,.
/ It's all glared Over-roof, pole, caves,
wires, pins and insulators, the skylightS
you 20 out of, the states you crawl acrOst,
the reescape you hang onto-and you
feel the ice melting underneath your
| fingers for your hands get numb. Then
/ the wlnd-Lord how the wind blows
! from the Nor'ard after a sleet storm,
on seven-story roof.
That's the weather when a lnemnn has
to work. Come Il day when it amt safe
to put foot acrost your door-sill on the
solid earth, that's the very day the line
men have to crawl like kids and cats hun
dreds of feet above you in the air, balanc-
ing aud holding of themselves for life's
sake and the sake of your telephone mes
sage against they slip and go. If he was
to make one misstep he'd be to pieces on
the pavement before you could say
There's lineman ~ There's no hope
for you if once you slip. If you amt a
dead man, you're worse. Your backs
broke or it's laid you up for life. Lucky
for you if you knocked your brains out
and done with. Your widder'll get or
better tnan if she got cripple to support
her and him and the children too.
Now this day tell you of, this sleetl
day, woke, for was miserable in my
mind, and | reported to headquarters fol-
slippery day. But | thought maybe il
didn't matter for was so miserable along
of Annie and him that had got my CIR
away from me- | hated him. had hat
ed him over night and hated him come
morning, and hate-hate-hated him ~
| walked along, that way, rs you'd marcel
to music. My hate and me kept step be
cause of him and Annie.
Now this is the way we do it. They
send us out according to the job and i
there's four or five of us, we're what yor
call a crew If there's a good many need
ed for any purpose, you'd say we were
force But trouble man he may "
alone; he may be by himself, it might 81
happen to him to he mending trouble
somewheres by himself. You might be
trouble man and You might see a lot o
: poles blowed down-for when one goe
: sometimes the rest go like rs they wert
. cards set up-and you might go and mott
fly the chief, aud he'd send a forceto ment
the trouble, but you he might send may
be to some point apart to set some mis-
+ chief right. you'd set your eye on May
be you'd go to a pole to guyit overhaul
to faSten it over to another pole--to Keel
it steady and to mend the break, and t.
1 ha
might be up to top Of this pole by your
self alone and it might be il was higl
pole, don't you see and there you are.
, Now then, this day speak of, | was or
dered to the South End for thered beer
the havoc to pay up along there in the re
) gion OF the city hospital, where those higl
. poles are-we've got some beautiful pole
/ at the South End. So my chief he sen
! me to pick out trouble way out toward
Roxbury for the wires were down along o
the sleet storm and we were pretty bus,
and all at once, for was going by,
see a horse-car driver stop his car AM
point his whip upwards over yonder be
= hind me, and turned and looked. Ant
then see folks staring and two or tire
t they stopped and we all looked up.
r And then | see sight | never saw be
: fore nor don't knows I'd care to see
| every January morning neither, .,o
r pole. I'd been up it, time again. 1t wa
! an eighty foot pole. 1t was all glare
Y over with the ice, and it shock agains
the wind. The wires were down.
I Up at the top of that there pole Their
: was man. I'd ought to say there hun
man, for quick us set eyes on MIN
knew is was all up with that man, 1t wa
1 a trouble man gone up 10 guy the pol
. over and he'd gone alone for nobody wa
= with him only the force to work to tn
. North ards, where the other pole had a
gone down.
\ My heart come into my mouth when
I saw that man, and my marrow froze witt
o in me for when looked, saw him fin
$ his arms-that way-and topple. When
2 saw him, for he fell for'ards on his fac
' against the cross-arms Of the the poles
a both arms ABOUT it, and kind Of come &c
$ gether like Il jack -knife-so-and there h
t hung. as helpless and as senseless as tn
). buried dead, him eighty feet above tn
}. ground.
t He's dead - cries the horse car drive
J. But the conductor said
. He's drunk ~
g He's in faint ~ cries somebody.
V "He's in "a fit !" says someone.
. HHp's got the cramD ~ | heard n fellO'