The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-01-09
JIM BURNS RIDE.

Jill DuruS represents q
house, and his territory is eastern
Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Jim
is a talented and artistic faoricator,
and his fables all bear the stamp of
originality. He is an inimitable nara
tor, and when he is in a storytelling
mood he never lacks for auditors.
Recently Jim and a number of other
commercial men were on a train which
pulled out of Pittsburg for the West.
The coterie soon drifted into story-tell-
ing, and the tales consisted chiefly of
personal adventures on the rail. After
the experience meeting had been in
session sometime, Burns said:
''The most exciting experience of
my life occurred about a year ago. I
have been in railroad wrecks and a
steamboat explosion, but they were
tame affairs as compared with the one
l am about to relate.
81 was on n of my usual trips and
early one morning boarded the train
at N to go to a point about twenty
miles distant. I entered the smoker,
and had probably ridden ten miles,
when l finished my cigar, and started
to go back to the next coach. AS I
stepped onto the platform between the
cars I noticed that the airbrakes were
being applied, and that there was no
station at that point, I stepped down
onto the lowerstep to look ahead. Be-
fore 1 had time, however, to see any
thing the train came to a dead stand,
and the stop was so sudden and violent
that I was thrown clear off the car,
and instantly found myself falling
through space with frightful rapidity.
"The a from which I was thrown
had stopped on a trestle about twenty
five feet high, and which passed over
a wagon road. Fortunately for me a
covered market wagon was passing
under the bridge at the time, and I
struck the top of the vehicle feet fore
most, and went through the top like a
shot. I landed with n foot in a
basket of eggs and the other in a crock
of butter, and then pitched forward
onto the seat with the driver. Ny en-
trance into the wagon occasioned con
siderable racket, and in less than half
second after I landed I was participat-
ing in a runaway that fairly took my
breath away. The horses tore down
the road at the top of their speed, and
the driver, who was a big, muscular
fellow, evidently had nc control over
them. While tugging and saving on
the lines the driver turned to me and
said:
"You id fool, just wait till I git
these horses stopped and I'll fix you"
I'VE had proceeded two or three
hundred yards in our career when We
entered a small village. A farmers
wagon with two horses attached, stood
in front of a blacksmith shop. We
smashed into the farm wagon, the
front wheel of the market wagon on
my side interlocked with The outside
front wheel of the other vehicle. The
shock pitched me out, and l landed in
the hind end of the farm wagon. The
farm team not being tied, and the
driver being absent, became fright
ened, sprang forward and tore the
wheel off the market wagon. The
market mans team continued down
the road, reducing the vehicle to kind
ling wood, and as the outf5 disap-
peared in 8 cloud Of dust the atmo,
sphere was filed with butter, eggs,
vegetables and big round oaths. I
found that I had only jumped out OF
the frying pan into the fire 1 was the
central figure in another runaway.
The farmers team was turning up the
road at a breakneck pace In the dlrec-
ton from which / had started. The
lines were wrapped around the lock
lever and I unwound them and tried
to stop the horses, but my efforts were
useless. In a moment we had reached