The morning news., 1889-01-30
AN EXPERT ON WINTER.
Why He Likes the Mild Sort Better
Than the Old-Fashioned Sort.


Than the Old-Fashioned Sort.
Bob Burdette in Brooklyn Eagle.
stand up and confess, without shame or
remorse, without blush on my fair round
cheek or pang of my good New York con-
science, that like this sort of a winter.
And just my luck, it comes when / have
buried my lecture certain fathoms in the
desk and abandoned the road. | am not
worshiper of stern winter / am a
salamander. / love to stretch out on
fragrant log and bask in the sun. | do
not love to break the ice when want
bath. l do not enjoy waiting for delayed
trains In draughty stations where the fire
is out and one uncert ain kerosene lamp with
broken chimney that smokes like sopho-
more in spite of the warning prohibition
posted up above the ticket office window
while the Pickering flame fills the dismal
room with a dim, religious light, about
niue parts dim to one religious; where the
operator, perplexed by the
ADVERSE INFLUENCE OF THE ELEMENTS
and the perplexing questions of the i'm
patient passengers who are not exactly pas
sengers either, but would like to be if there
were anything to ride on, mutters wrathful
compliments about the train dispatcher who
is sending him orders about trains that he
hasn't heard of for five hours; where the
nearest tavern is a mile away, and shut I'D
tighter than nunnery when you get 20 it !:
where disagreeable boys who ought to be in
bed or paradise continually run in and out.
and leave the doors open, and bring in raw
blasts from boreal climes, and throw snow
balls and shuttle and snuffie and howl; |
don't like this sort of thing. And worse
still, when it happens that the station at
which you are cast ashore is not q night
Office; where no one comes to help you while
away the lonely hours save only couple of
big burly trampS, who
COME IN DRUNK AND SWEARING
and kick your valise and ask if it is yours;
and you wonder whether to start for the
distant hotel and get knocked down on the
way or stay in tho station and get robbed
peaceably, and finally settle the matter by
gatting on the first train that comes along,
cattle train going the wrong wav. Or
when you are called at $3.50 O'Clock a. H.,
ana learn that the only tavern in the town
doesn't run bus to that train; when YOU
dress in the dark because you knock the
glass lamp to the floor while you are feel
ing for il; no porter to help you to the
station; when you walk about three
quarters of a mile through a biting
December wind, until you can't tell your
numbed fingers from the handle Of your
g5ip, and the only reason you don't let it
fall is because you can't unclasp your frozen
fingers; when you discover, about half waV
to the station, that you left your arctics at
the tavern; when you sli . on q glare of ice
and fall on a clOd Of frozen dirt, striking it
with such force that the end of your spine
lifts the hat of your head And talking
about hard things, there is nothing in all
this hard-hearted, pitiless old world
so BARD AS A FROZEN CLoD.
There is some elasticity about a granite
boulder or an ingOt of steel when YOU fall
on them, but a frozen clod, in the night.
standing about two inches higher than its
fellow, feels that it has the whole firm earth
at its back; it feels ami knows that it is a
part of the great globe itself; it stands on
its eternal base, fixed, immovab!e: and
when you go down and make tie external
contact, and note the point of primal i'm
pingement you have the impression that YOU
have been struck by the great whiriing
terrestrial globe. Talk about hard
lines! When the cars are cold and
the brakemen are cross: when the
woman whose new furs are such a
novelty to her that she keeps them on and
opens window right in your face, and the
man behind you opens another on your
back; when the tow els in your room at the
hotel are frozen to the rack; when the v ind
bangs shutter like mad all night, murder
ing sleep and driving you frantic with nerv-
business, until at last you get up, open the
WI dow, catch your death of cold while
feeling around in the darkness for that
shutter, Only to discover that it is on win
dow in the next room-do | love a clear
keen, sharp, braciEg winter of snow and
lce, biting wind, ringing skates, hail and
seets No, by ST. Lawrence, ! do not. Or
wa.