The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1891-05-21

THE DowNTRODDEN CHEROKEE.
a whole town is hardly worth assessing
A county with a barbed wire fence
around it is more like the CUSTOMARY
thing. A friend of mine here has the
best of county. 1t is fenced in will
barbed wire, which the outlaw used tc
cut now and then so that the cattle
would get out and wander away into
Peru and other neighboring places. He
had to keep force of cowboys to ''ride
the lines" and examine the fence every
day, until it occurred to him that he
could make the top wire a telegraph
wire, and with an instrument at head
quarters he could detect break and
locate it at any time So now line re-
pairer and cheap operator, who has
nothing to do but to communicate with
himself all day, constitute the fence
force in place of the old and expensive
corps of riders and repairers.
We rode up from Galveston the other
day with Conductor Taylor. He is a
hearty man with genial smile filed
with mirth and gilt edged teeth. He is
the kind of conductor who looks out for
his passengers comfort. He telegraphed
ahead and got a lunch for US, which
saved our lives no doubt, for we had to
travel all day on the Houston and
Shreveport railroad, which is said to be
the worst in the United States. Yet it
is a genial and accommodating road.
All the trains are accommodation trains.
The one rode on stopped fifteen min
utes while tall man went back to re-
cover his hat, and it was not very
good hat either.
When the train pauses at a station on
the Houston and Shreveport road the
little bronze razorback hog comes and
eats the axle grease off the cars, and the
inebriated Cherokee Indian assists his
jag on board the train and reproaches
the white man for robbing him of his
lands. We had one as fellow passen-
ger. He wore pink shirt, with large,
wide founces at the wrists and around
his neck. He had been drinking, so /
was told by people who knew him,
though thought at first that it was his
way. He spoke of the past with some
sorrSw, and as he held my hand great
big warm tear welled up in his dark eye
and fell on my vest. He said that his
folks owned all the south at one time,
but the white man came among them,
and two or three treaties with thirty
days and costs deprived them of their\
once lands.
The Cherokee has not been well treat
ed, of course. Neither has the negro,
nor anybody else, for that matter. The
heather has been imposed upon, and SO
has the missionary who went across the
sea to knock little gospel into him. A
missionary who graduated with meat
the same female seminary, in fact-went
over to sock little Calvinism into the
heart of Timbuctoo, but his relatives to-
day do not even know the names of
the folks who ate him. On the other
hand, the heather is said to murmur
good deal about the flavor of several
well meaning pastors who used tobacco
to excess, and which impaired their use
fulness from a food standpoint The
use of tobacco for many years makes the
most toothsome people as unpalatable as
a Mexican.
In the day coach there was a lady
with snuff stick in one corner of her
mouth, asleep The clipper" is quite
common here among the plain people.
If one could have seen this peri slum-
bering there, with her snuff swab in the
corner of her sagging jaw and the corn
cob stopper of bluing bottle-which
did not contain bluing any more, how
ever-as it peeped from the pocket of
her deep and profound mourning dress,
be wo111d have said to himself. Chow
cool and restful must nave seemed the
grave in which her husband secreted
himselfr' Any way that is what said.
Others, of course, might have looked at
the matter differently, however
Everything is out of repair on the
road except the receiver. He
is looking first rate.
In Louisiana the great parent of wa
tiers was on the rampage. Recently pipes
and fumes of one kind and another have
been inserted at various points along the
banks of the river, so / am informed,
and when the water is high leakage
occurs which grows at last to
be terrific crevasse. Then the water
away all over the state, and
floats the pork barrel in the cellar of the
better classes.
We met up with the Mississippi and
found where it was at, more than six
hours before we really crossed it. | was
almost certain that we came upon it be-
fore we got to Shreveport, but the con-
ductor said he hardly thought that pos
sible, because it couldn't get across the
Red river owing to high water.
| lectured once in Mississippi. After
had done so, and the roar of applause
had died away, small boy with pale, |
brick complexion, lbroken |
here and there by large melodious
freckles, came forward to the footlights, |
and in childish treble inquired, els |
that all. captainY' said yes, and he
went away rather reluctantly, thought
That is the reason why | went home |
feeling rather depressed, for although / |