The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-12-26
THE STAGE-COACH BABY.
1T WAS NIGH UNTO DEATH AND
WORRIED TIE PASSENGERS.

But Was Only Wax One After All and
Part Of a Clever Western Scheme to
Fool the Road Agents-It Worked
like Charm, so This Story Goes.
From the Detroit Free Press.
"Go home, Injuns, go home," said the
man on the cracker box, "this is the hour
for every soeaking son of WiunebagO to
say his leetle now lay me- in the reserva-
ton. Gitw aud be pointed to the door of
the rendezvous with gesture that admitted
Of no delay.
Them copper-colored coyotes would set
thar like alebaster images all night and
the hull OF ter-morrow If there waren't
somebody to boot them off. An they lissea
an don't understand word but look so
pizen KNOWN you'd think they wuz drinkin'
1t all inn
The Indians filed out, and without a
sound disappeared into the night and the
usual complement OF visitors gathered at
the stove with the maa on the cracker box
as center-piece. There was q man who
was selling patent clothes-reels, and another
who was selling Bibles, old Capt. Lemming
and the postmaster and man from the
Missouri bottoms whose team was hitched
outside. He told them that he expected his
"old woman" and 'little galn by the stage,
which was usually late.
"Speakin' OF the STAGE said the man ON
the cracker box, I'm regularly glad amt
In 1t. Onct over them driveways twixt
here and Omaha was enough for me- No.
thankee, pard, If l can't go by steam, then
stays where be. I've no notion for tray
elm with wimmin and sick babies in a
stage COACH"
"Tell US bout it, can't vel" suggested the
clothes-reel man, who was dying of what
ne called "endway" at being stranded In
such forlorn place.
"'Taint so much to tell" said the crack
or box man, cutting off good-sized chew
from the ''ptgn Of tobacco offered TO him,
AN l guess / can wind it up afore the
stage gets here, but the dom and sufPerin'
OF 1t is what hurts my feelin's, to think
when warnted TO whoop and boiler, that
kept 1t all in just on account of that good
tor-nothing'-say I'm getting ahead of
my story.
Bows, dye member when the bridge
over Pigeon river was built, an what lot
OF money and work an political shenanigan
it took, an how picters of the fine structure,
as they called 1t, was in them New York
papers an how sot up all the fellers on the
prairie felt cause they didn't have to take
off their shoes an stockings an ford the
crick. An how the work was well under
way when the S., 900 necessary to finish 1t Oft
was sent out by speshel messenger Say.
l was on the stage when the Teller
with that money started to come through.
There was four or five Of us on the inside
OF the coach that day, end one woman with
sick baby-she was tryin' to get it home
to her folks afore 1t died, she said. She
was young an pretty, but her eyes were
red from cryin' an tekin' care of the young
I'm day an night. She didn't have much TO
say 10 any of US, but when she looked at us
With them big sorrowful eyes our hearts
just went down into our boots, and we
would have laid down an let her walk over
us.
1.-THE baby was wrapped up in shawls
an wells and lay on a pillow an was fed
with one OF them nuSsin-bottles, an it
whiued and cried leetle, in a faint, sick
way, AM the mother kissed and cooed to it
an sung leetle hymns that made us all get
colds in our head, an she feared 1t was get
tin worse and would die afore she got
homel She was goin' to the fur end Of the
stage route, she said, with her voice full of
tears.
1.-THE t'other passenger that interested us
rid on the box with the driver I don't
know how it was that we saveyed right off
that he was the Teller that had the money
for that bridget guess that it were on the
same principle that the birds of the air know
when to get together an go south-a kind
of instinct. Fact was we didn't option
rightly to that bridge scheme. We thought
the next county were putting on airs with
a wrought iron bridge out on the prairie
for the COWS to hoof over. But weren't
any of our funeral aud we didn't make it
one.
But that Teller with cloak with a cape
to 1t, sot w on deck a seein' the landscape
DER, as the old hymn ses, an a lookin'
kinder rich an satisfied, jes told on himself.
an we kinder wondered whar he kept the
spondulics If he he'd 'em in his boots, or in
belt, or bis hat linin'. An we got to
talkin' it over inside, an the leetle woman
spoke up kind o. quick en-, ses she: Don't,
please my baby Is verse; an sure enuff it
were, an had a kinder CONFUSION that
made us feel as if we were murderers for
disturbin' of it.
"An' then something happened. The
horses fus took to gallopln', an there was a
pistol shot, an the stage stopped SO quick
we was all in a heap The little woman
grabbed her baby an its piller an laid 'em
both on the seat an hung over them. Jest
then the door of the stage few open an q
head was stuck in. Il were tibet of man
With mask on, an he had a pistol pinted
ahead of him.
"'Get out, you fellers he says In low
voice, but as plain as ye ever heard in yer
life; be lively, now. We're in a hurry,
we amt goin' TO hurt yer if so ye obey
| orders
"'Sh-sh-shp said the leetle woman who
was hanging over her yonng IN, her face
down close TO its lips. Gentlemen, my
poor child is going--let it die in peace
"'Bother tie brat says the man, bru-
tally. we amt emmy business with wimmin
an chiidren-this way, fellers.'
"When we got out there was three high
waymen an they had the driver an the
young Teller with the overcoat covered with
their pistols, an were swearin' like troop
ers cause they didn't find any money-that
is, not che big haul they expected. They
took what we had, an after abusin' us all
they dared. an tearin' our clothes off to
search US, they let US 60, firm a regular fu~
silade after US an emptyin' their revolvers.
might have bin very differently situated
IL hadn't met with such misfortune; but
it can't be helped now"
lose much ~ asked the Bible peddler, as
he lighted his pipe at the stove.
"All had ;" and the cracker box man
sighed heavily, "an' bull's-eye watch my
grandfather carried in the revolutionary
war"
Ibid the baby die. an what become of the
young Teller aud the money! asked the
clothes-reel man.
''The baby died right there an then. The
mother were fannin' it when the stage
started up again, and we wer'nt more'n out
of sight O them robbers when she began to
scream, and says she, my baby's deadf and
aha draw the shawl over its face and