St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1888-09-13
Chased by a Thunderbolt.

q
in the western country.
"Well," he returned, al reckon ;
run of 40 miles | made on the Nortl
Platte end of the division was the slick
est. You see, / was sent ont from
Omaha with light engine to pull in ;
special directors car from Nortf
Platte, and when / got within about 81
miles of the latter station | was giver
an order to run regardless of every
thing-other trains were side tracked
for me.
az hadn't left the station more'n five
minutes before a heavy thunderstorm
came up-they do it awful quick ou
ed the finest display of fireworks you
ever saw.
"All of sudden Tom yells to me:
Holy Moses The lightning's
struck the track Pull out, Johnny
or we're done for ="
81 looked back, and sure enough
there came a streak of lightning along
the right rail headed for us. 1t was a
kinder whitish blue sort of thing,
and was humping along like it had a
time order.
81 knew that if it struck the machine
we was all gone to the sweet hereafter,
and pulled her wide open.
"Well, the old machine seemed TO
know something was up, and she gave
jump like a scared antelope and off
ahead of that lightning streak. AT
first the streak seemed to be gaining
on us, but after the engine got good
and started, my, you ought to see the
distance play out between us. But the
lightning didn't seem to be discOurag-
ed. 1t just spit on its hands and claw
ed along after us like prOmissOry
note after an insOlvent debtor.
"Well, l see something must be
done, but couldn't make Out how to do
it. 1t was plain that if this thing kept
up much longer the water and coal
would give out, not to speak of red hot
journals. L says to Tom:
"'Heave away now with the coal,
and we'll fool him. and, although he'd
been heaving away since the start OF
the race, that seemed to help, for !
could see the lightning was tagging.
Then l turned the machine over to
him and crawled back on the tank. |
had an idea. There was siding few
miles ahead, and if we could make it
y
draw bar on the tank, and when l
reckoned we'd got about the right dis
lance, | dropped it. | could see it
rolling along for quite distance, and
then / get back to the engine and
Stacked up.
"All of a sudden | heard the most
Outlandish racket you ever heard OF
behind us. Then the air was full of
IL r
enough the drawbar had fallen in the
switch Pd calculated on hitting, and
had made such a connection with the
main track that the lightning had been
switched off and had run down Oh the
siding and into two cars of powder
standing there. Pm sorry l can't give
you the exact time of that run, but I'M
der the circumstances you couldn't ex-
pect man to hold watch, now could
yOua7"
Travels of a Thorn in a Mans Body.
Savannah Neaos
George w. Mitchell, the foreman OF
the Palatka, Florida, Daily News, was
thrown into cOntemplative mood the
other day by a strange occurrence
About seven years ago he was travel
ing in Mexico, and while out walking
one day he saw something on the
ground that excited his curiosity anG
stopped down to pick it up. While
thus STOPPING or sitting on one knee he
lost his balance and fell over against &
cactus, running one of the thOrns into
the calf of his leg. He tried to pull il
out, but did not succeed, and when he
got up, as it had stuck into muscle, il
had a firm hold, and was drawn il
through the skin and disappeared. Fol
a week after that the only incOnven-
fence was a little soreness in the
wound, and two or three years after
Mr.. Mitchell said he felt as if he ha(
rheumatism in that leg. Recently &;
sore place was felt on his chin-sOme
thing like boil, though not quite 81
painful. Still it was enough to annoy
him, and he kept working at the place
as one will, until he felt a sharp pOin
protruding. He tried several ways o
ascertaining what it was, and finally
resOrted to the Old-fashioned way o1
squeezing the place until the poin
came out and about three quarters o
an inch of the old cactus thorn. Afte
seven years of travel over his body
entering the calf of his leg, it fnall.
finishes its journey on the end of hi
chin.