Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1889-06-07
IN THE. NICK OF TIME.

Miss Lily Somers, night telegraph
operator at the Floodwood station, sat
before her table on which the telegraph
instrument clicked busily, thoughtful
expression on her face.
A face whose expression was its
charm, that never could be called pret-
ty, but that, nevertheless, suggested a
possibility-only possibility being
handsome. For there is vast differ
ence between pretty AMI handsome.
Pretty people seldom know very much;
but to be handsome a person must have
brains, an inner as well as an outer
beauty.
Floodwood was forlornly desolate
spot, and one where any woman, except
Lily, would have been afraid to come,
much less to stay alone all night with
nothing but the wind sadly sighing
through the wires overhead and the shrill
shrieks of the wild cats away up on the
mountain side to keep her company
through her nightly vigils. But to her
there was something fascinating in the
very desolation of the place. From car
ly childhood she had been accustomed
to commune with nature in her wilder
scenes, and played and wandered at will
IN the mountain gYens and canons. with
no foolish old woman or silly nurse girl
to frightcn her childish senses with sto-
ries of hideous ghosts and monstrous
goblins, she had grown to womanhood
naturally brave and fearless In truth
he did not understand the meaning of
the word fear.
Her office was nothing more than a
roughly built shanty, seven or eight feet
quaTe, with small window in each end
and one in the door which faced the
railroad track. 1t had been hurriedly
put together with green lumber while
the road was in course of construction,
with the intention of only using it
temporarily until better one could be
built, but, as usual in such cases, it had
done duty for its original purpose ever
since.
The rough, uEpainted boards were
badly warped and shrunken by long ex-
posure to the clements, and in many
places large knots had fallen completely
out.
No doubt in the winter time the bleak
mountain wind cheerily whistled through
these many apertures, and while one
side of the unhappy operator was being
nicely Drowned like a piece of toast by
the red-hot stove the other side would
be refrigerated like a frozen rabbit.
1t was about o'clock in the morning
when Lily received an order from the
train dispatcher, which read as follows:
To OPERATOR, FLooDwooD:-Hold No. 81
until No. % arrives. EXC.
On receipt of this order she immedi-
ately displayed the red signal light,
which is furnished all telegraph stations
for this purpose, in conspicuous place,
in plain sight Of passing trains, and also
where it could be seen from the office
window.
The necessity for this order and posi-
ton of the two trains, briefly stated, are
as follows:
No. % had arrived at Silver Creek.
ten miles west of Floodwood, few
minutes after No. 81 had passed Red
wood, which was thirteen miles east of
Floodwood. As No. % was late and
could go no futher on the schedule, ac-
cording to the rules of the road, they
would be compelled to lay at Silver
Creek until No. 81 arrived there, unless
they could get orders by telegraph to
sisisssss iisss ~ssssa ssasaassaaa NJ.
wood being the only intervening telc-
graph office between the two trains, the
dispatcher gave the above order to that