The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1891-10-29

AAS AAASoAAe"SAAAo SN~AoNA ~>N~
20 be unreasonable but he did wish
shat the employees of the great Cresson
sotton mills had not chosen for their
strike time when every news field
was overcrowding the paper, and
when an unusually active political
campaign was beginning
Millions OF dollars were invested in
the Cresson manufactures, and the
mills had been compelled to shut
down in day. Hard as the situation
was for the mill-owners, the managing
editor felt that it was harder still for
che newspaper to be compelled to
eend away one OF it's best men just at
this time.
He drew his hand YEARLY across his
Sorehead with the gesture OF man
whose brain is overworked.
At this moment an alert and very
young man, scarcely more than boy,
clear-eyed and frank in appearance,
booked in at the door,
SoIIiS Ill, NIL. llcbLu lllS oilctll ltbS .
70 send you away on special work.
Those everlasting spinners and wea-
vers at Cresson have struck. l want
you to reach the ground by the first
train tomorrow morning. You know
'upon such a matter it won't do for the
Magnet to be beaten, and I needn't
tell you that the Magnet wants the
whole truth about it. That's one
reason why send you"
'"Thank you, sir. I shall be glad to
CO."
"Tll put someone else on that mat
Ger of Colonel Benson's candidacy in
the tenth district. And, Harding"
eyes"
Return tomorrow night if you
gan. If you cannot, stay over; but see
It through, if it takes a month"
Harding was full of enthusiasm in
his work. He exulted boyishly in the
important assignment thus commit
ted to him, for he knew that a good
performance of such duty would
contribute to his advancement
When the Daily Magnet special cor
respondent alighted from the morning
express in the city of Cresson the
looms and spindles were idle; the mill.
yards were deserted, save by the po-
Mcemen detailed to guard the property
there; agents and other officials were
in consultation in the offices and
~counting-rooms; angry and discon-
tented operatives were gathered
around the street corners.
All that day Harding went from
place to place, winning the confidence
OF the mill managers by his frank and
Bentlemanly bearing, and that of the
leaders OF the strike by his evident
fairness and desire to get at the exact
truth.
He found that he could return on
the evening express; and when he took
the train at a quarter past seven his
report OF the matter was already
nearly completed.
Under the dim car lights he scrib-
'bled on industriously, sure of a tri-
umph. The other newspapers, he had
found, were depending upon Inefficient
local correspondents for their &C.
counts of the matter.
The train rushed through the gath
ering darkness. The sparks swept
back from the throbbing engine in
golden showers, like the tail of a com.
ct. and the cinders ratified noisily
against the windows. Harding worked
ON, concentrating all his energy upon
the making of a graphic account of
the strike. d..
The lights of the town of Benton
were shining, only two or three miles
distant, along a straight, level stretch
OF track just in advance, when the
whistle sounded a wild, shrill note of
alarm. Then came shock, a. crash,
the splitting and shattering OF tim
oers, the swapping of IRON and steel,
and, above all other sounds, the cries
OF human agony. s..
The express train with it's burden of
people, crushed, mangled, imprisoned,
dead or dying, lay piled upon the
track, a CHASTITY wreck in the summer
night.
IT. was the old story. Someone had
blundered, and the fruits of the blum
der were reaped in human lives. The
train had been carried upon an i'm
properly set switch upon side track,
and the express had been heaped in
fragments upon a row of laden flat
cars. .".-s. r..
Tom Harding was stunned bv a
broken timber. but only for m oment.
He reused himself with a half-dazed
consciousness of disaster that left no
room tor any immediate sense of pain.
He thought of his mother-then OF his
newspaper.
This thought reused him to con.
seriousness that he had work to do;
and in the sudden awakening to the
realities Of the situation he became
aware that his legs were pinioned SO
that he could not move, and that
pains were darting through his body
'unaccountable pains, growing con.
stantly more intense.
He moved slightly, and would have
cried out, but that the piercing
screams about him kept him still
from very shame. His nervous GRASP
frightened on the notebook and
pencil which he still held in his hand
Men approached with lanterns. He
called to them, and they came and
rrelleyed the pressure about his legs
waiting for him to climb out of tho
wreck
~ don't know what's the matter
me said, painfully, "but I'm hurt