The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1891-08-06
BILL ARP.
Colonel Mark Hardin tells Stunning
Story to Bill Arp.
atlanta Constitution,

Colonel QlAfR dArQ1u t6Ab .
Story to Bill Arp.
atlanta Consultation.
As iron sharpeneth iron, so q mans
face aharpeneth the face of his friend.
How it shortens the miles to travel with
a companion who has something to talk
about, and knows how TO talk it. came
with one yesterday from Atlanta. The
day WAS hot and the dust and cinders
disagreeable, but the minutes and the
miles flew by and I was home before I
knew 1t. The other day I found good
company on the train, for it was Mark
Hardin, the ancient and modern clerk OF
the House of Representatives, and I soon
got him on the trail of his late travels to
the Pacific Coast and the new State of
Washington. A man who has not trav-
eled some knows but little of what is go.
ing on in the world. He can't get it BY
reading history, and there are but few
travellers who can tell what they have
seen and make it interesting. But Marx
can, and I could listen to him all day on
train. had been travelling some my
self, and was narrating as how had been
away out to Kansas City and saw them
killing cattle and hogs, and how it seem.
ed to me I had gotten almost to the
jumping off place, and so forth, when
Mark took off his coat and squared him..
self for business, and bit off his tobacco
and said: "Well, yes; Kansas City does
seem good ways of, and I used to think
it was, but not long ago I took q notion
to peruse this western hemisphere, and I
started out from Atlanta with friend
and by the time ne got to Kansas City ne
had travelled a thousand miles and felt
like We must be half way, and SO we
stopped over day and blowed around
and rested and then took fresh start
for the Pacific. Well, cir, they penned
us up in vestibule train, and took
enough provisions aboard to feed an army,
and they fastened on the kitchen, and the
cooks, and the dining room and parlors
and reading rooms, and library and q
saloon and everything else but carriage
and horses, and away We went over plains
and valleys, and hills and mountains at
thirty.fve miles an hour for 1,740 miles,
without stopping ten minutes anywhere,
and dident stop at all for 500 miles at q
stretch"
aHow about coal and water ?" said 1.
"Blamed if I know" said Mark.
"Might have stopped while we were
asleep, but I never saw any. Don't need
any more than half the way, nohow, for
you just roll and slide down the noun
tains for half day at time. You climb
and climb higher and higher until you
can almost touch the moon and the seven
stars, and you can see all creation down
below you, and it makes man feel like
he vas nobody, and had no kinsfolks,
and it didn't matter q cent whether he
lived or died. a trip over the Rockies
and the Sierras will take the vanity out
of man quicker than anything ! know.
There is nothing left for him but to trust
his Maker. he feels more helpless than
be does on the ocean, for to be drowned
is nothing horrible, but for the train to
break wheel or jump the track on
narrow cliff q thousand feet high and the
whole concern to go cracking and falling
to the gulch below is just awful. And
there are hundreds of such frightful pre-.
cipicies. Well, when ne had got 1,740
miles west Of Kansas City they let us out
for thirty minutes and it was just glori-
ous to get on the ground again and feel
the solid earth under your feet, and to my
opinion it is the best place better than
water, better than air, better than riding
on train, Of its dust we we're made,
and in its bosom ne must sleep. But as
was telling you, wa boarded the train
again and put on clean shirt and took
fresh start and rolled away for l ,440 miles
more and got to the jumping off place
sure enough, and like old Balboa, stood
upon rock and gazed in majestic silence
upon the Pacific ocean. III we're Byron
or Shakespeare could tell you about
that, but I'm nobody much since I got
back and never expect to be. The world
is a heap bigger thing than I thought it.
Why the fir trees all over Washington
are over 800 feet high, and you have to
take two sights to see to the top, and I
saw measured acre that had been sold
to sawmill and the timber cut of, and
I counted twenty.seven stumps, and the
smallest was eight and half feet in di-
ameter, and the mill cut up one of the
trees into shingles while I was looking at
| them, and that one tree turned out 80, 900