St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-05-21
IN SEVERAL COLLISIONS.
A Railroad Ride in the Northwest
in the Blizzard Season.


St. Louis Republic.
Ever in collision? Well. rather"
and the speaker. small man with new
sport-in-town trousers, keen eye aud
a humorous expression, lit cigar, took
a deep draw, and with an immense
volume of smoke concealed somewhere
inside his personality began the story:
II was coming down from MinneapO-
lis year ago last winter on the Chicago,
Burlington q Quincy. You may re-
member that that was one of the hard
west, and the snow lay very deep all
ruary, and the weather was bitter cold.
We had heavy train, and from the
time we left St. Paul the train steadily
lost time with every mile.
s'It was heavy work, wallowtng
through the big drifts, but it couldn't
be helped, and we soon had a choice
party formed in the buffet-chair car and
nice little game Of 'cinch' for nominal
stakes in progress. The buffet was
handy, and there was plenty of coal in
the locker, and there was no reason why
the time should drag. About O'Clock
in the morning, just as was about
to swamp everything in sight with
an ace, king, jack hand, we
stopped so unprecedented that
cards, glasses and counters were
scattered promlscuously over the floor.
By the time the party lad gathered it
self together brakeman stuck his head
in the door and said there was nc Occa-
sion for alarm-we had merely stuck in
drift. and he called for volunteers to
help dig the engine out. Well, we all
went out and shoveled snow, and after
half an hour or SO OF hard work we got
through and started again. We went
back to the car. and for a while the
porter was kept busy linking hot
drinks. Nobody felt like going to bed.
and so the game was started again.
SIT must have been about = o'clock in
the morning, l think, and we were
twenty-five or thirty miles west of Du-
buque, when the same thing happened
again. 1t was no novelty this time, but
we all turned out and shoyeled snow
again, and finally got her started. Then
we turned in with the blessed con-
seriousness that when we woke up it
would be just in time to dress for a
good dinner in Chicago. But that's
where fate got ringer in on
us. Do you know where Freeport.
Ill.,, is? Well, it was about three miles
west of that point. We were pounding
along and trying to make up some Of
our lost time. l couldn't sleep, and so
l came out and dropped into another
little card party in the chair car. We
were playing at one of those narrow
swinging tables, one end OF which is
hinged so the car, and l was sitting fac
ing the buffet and probably six feet dis
tant from it. The front of the buffet
was big sheet of plate glass, and be-
hind it the cook-a typical negro cook,
fat and good natured-was c0aXing an
oyster stew over an oil stove.
''Well. the game was getting interest
ing, when-cr-a-raSh!- we stopped. Pm
rather light weight, and the shock Of
the collision picked me up bodily and
hurled me headforemoSt through the
plate glass into the bosom of the cook,
literally paralyzing that functlonary
and sprinkling shower Of soup all
over the car. Singularly enough, did
the cook didn't breathe again for half
an hour. By the time we had pulled
the remaining tourists out of the hat
racks and coal box and from under the
chairs, the same nervy brakeman put
his head inside of the car and said:
".Gents, we've run into a freight
train Oh the curve. Nob0dy's killed.
Who'll volunteer to help clear away the
wreck?'
"A fat man from Southern Illinois,
who had just recovered his senses,
arose, and in a voice heard in the next
car. he roared:
"sN0t blankety blank man,
'And we didn't, but we lay there
into Chicago after dark, having been
just twenty-five hours on the road.
You'll excuse me from travelling in that
country in the winter hereafter"