The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1890-10-14
"SAT ON HER NICKEL"
An Irishwoman Who Occupied a
Seat in the Street Car Made
Little Woman Mad.

The car was pretty full that night.
There wss a washer woman up In
front carefully looking after basket
of clothes on the platform; two school
ma'ams earnestly discussing the Del
Sarte system of calisthenics; drunk;
en- man; two boys with dinner pals;
little girl with owlish eyes, a white
face, and big book from the library;
a Judge; two .'sas>iety' ladies; a
handsome drummer with an inevitable
stove pipe a half-dozen nondescripts,
and last, but not least, a big Irish
conductor, new in the service, full of
his position, who rushed back and
forth, shook the stove, took up fares,
shouted the streets, offered advice to
timid people about their routes. With
q satisfaction which will only be
eoualed when Deacon Dinwiddie de.
iivers his first letter from the little
picture frame in SedaliA's postoffice
And the wind blew outside, the
sleet came down in new direction
every minute, the conductor worried
the Homeopathic s'ove and pushed all
sorts of ways getting at it and back
again until one would have thought
he regarded US all as eggs, and his
chief object in life was to scramble us
thoroughly, and cook us we'll after,
wards. The car stopped, and shy
little brown eyed woman came in,
east a one-sided o don't get.up-I'd-
just as-soon-staud glance around.
reached for a SIP, aud
the two boys, the drummer,
and the judge rose and said 6 Seat,
lady. Whereupon the little woman
looked up at the tall drummer. said
Thank you, and sat down with a
vague impression that be was hand
some, and wondered in an indefinite
kind of way if he we're mari; ed. and
if her hat was straight. Not that she
had sufficiently developed MUD to
think these things purposely. She
was to quaint little woman for thai.
and she had something else to think |
about. 1t was Saturday night, dark |
as anything, and she had a whole
months weges in her pocket OK, lin |
view of which facts even the pictures
que drummer invested himself in her
imagination with all the terrors of
the highwayman. Watching her
o. portunity, she opened the purse
stealthily, took out the nickel" for
the conduc or, laid it on the seat
beside her, slipped the pocket-book
into the bottom of the pnokAt IF the
old fashioned, round-skirted, black
dress, stood up to re-adjust the fold of
the long Newmarket, and hal just re-
seated herself. when the car stopped
again,-the conductors voice came in
over the heads of the passengers with
q peremptory desire that we should
" move up front, "-and another wo-
man, big and hfavy,-short ofbreath
and self.assertive, came in. A woman
with one Of those faces that used to
be human, but from which Father
Time seems to be obliterating the
features as fast as he can, ss if he
were ashamed of the mistake made by
Mother Nature in fsshioning sucn |
folks,-so that they gradually come
to look like wooden faces,
from which all the projecting |
points have been chip
ped, and whose hollows are slowly |
filling with dust, unit! there is Just |
great fat sea of face, with which a |
tight dress, choked expression and
a labored breath are always associated.
She made an impressive march up the |
aisle, and stopped in front of the two
tired boys with dinner pals with a
stolid expectant look that lifted them
bodily from their seats. turned herself
round cumbrous!y, and complacently,
and sat down. Sat down on all the !
the place the boys had occupied,
crowded the washerwomaD on the one
side SO that the latter worthy COM
menced "swellin' visibly" under the |
infiction, and, on the o,her hand, che
tilted the shy little woman't hat over
her eye, pinned one arm 10 her side
50 that it went sound asleep and |
stayed there, and fastened her securely
to her seat by encamping on the skiri,
p"cknt, pocket-book, and "nickel."
She was such very shy little wo-
man that this was quite tragedy 10
her. and it was a long time before she
had the courage to thrust her head
forward so as to see around the big
woman's shoulder, look up in her face,
and say, with the most deprecating
way in the world: . |
II beg your pardon, ma'am, but
you sat down on my nickel"
The big woman p,id no attention,
only stared straight in front of her,
I'LL, what with the eerie sound of The