The Press., 1894-08-30


 "You see that old barn there ?" my companion asked suddenly, after climb of particularly long hill made up of Q series of little steep pitches. nodded in the affirmative as gazed at the building, little low shed, with the roof terribly sagged and full of great holes, and the sides braced up together by means of fence rails placed against them and gen. eral suggestion about the entire structure of the old one-horse shay on the morning of its dissolution. "Well, the man that owns it lives in that house there," nod ding towards small three-room house in a bad state of repair. "Hes a hermit, and he ought to be complained of to the Animals. You see, he keeps 0 COW in that old shed and in the winter the poor thing suffers terribly from the cold. The building becomes half filled with snow at every snow-storm and twice last winter it nearly blew over and had to be pushed to place and braced up. Then, what little hay it holds, besides the COW, becomes soaked with every rain and is not fit to eat. When that is gone, he takes wheel barrow and goes up on that side hill and wheels down those tumbles, one by one, and feeds her. Those lie out, with no protection from the weather, all winter" With this final outburst my entertainer relapsed into silence, having shown her tender regard for animals.
 After the sorting of the mail at North Coventry, where we stopped long enough to get light lunch at the hotel, we push ed on. Taking out her watch at the top minute ahead of time. From the top of this hill it was straight down for quite distance; then from the bottom there was climb up 8 hill of apparently the same height and grade, the road being perfectly straight, and the two hills re- sembling the sides of 0 broad-topped V. A country grocer's team was lazily crawl ing up the last pitch on the summit of the opposite hill, and was asked to guess the distance between our team and that. "A quarter of mile," suggested l, think ing that had probably greatly overrated it. "Just one mile," said she with a tri- umphant smile at my failure to anywhere near approximate the distance. It seem ed almost incredible at first, the clear morning air making the team appear so near that fancied I heard it rattle as it moved slowly along over the stony road. But the time that it took us to reach the top of the hill proved to me that it must be fully mile. On this hill she pointed out the spot where, as she tersely eX- pressed it, she ''stopped couple of nig- gers from fighting" 1 remembered then an account I had seen in paper about | the affair." One of the colored persons, | becoming partially intoxicated, had called upon the other, very steady old gentle | man owning small farm on the hill, and | fer a slight grievance had knocked him down and beat him unmercifully, bruising and cutting his head and reducing him to l a state of insensibility, when woman ap- peared on the scene and drove the intoxi- cated man away and had the injured man cared for. The assailant was afterwards arrested and committed to jail. The pa- per had spoken in high terms of the brave act of the woman, but until she spoke failed to associate her with that person. l When began to compliment her about it | she said:
 l "Pshaw! That was nothing. Didn't suppose I was going to see the old man
 killed, did you? ?"
 "But weren't you afraid the drunken
 man would go for you?'' suggested l.
 "Well, I guess not" she replied, Che
 knew better; and as for being afraid, Charlotte Waldo was never afraid of any
 man living"
 I suggested how lonesome her drive
 must be, when she had no passengers,
 and asked her if she ever met tramps.
 "Yes," said she, "I meet some pretty
 tough looking customers sometimes, but
 they never touch me. If they did they would find out how serious a thing it is to
 interfere with the United States mails"
 This was said quietly and simply with
 no attempt at clustering, but from the
 resolute, determined look upon her face,
 knew that she was capable of occupying the position she does, and that one had better think twice before interfering with
 her, while in her official capacity" Although, as we neared the end of our journey, she became less conservative and
 was led by few questions of mine to talk
 more of herself, she would say nothing of her past life She has made the trip ev-
 cry day except Sundays since she started, and has never missed getting the mail to Bolton in time for the train, not even in winter She has had two breakdowns
 during her career as driver, but both she
 strapped up until she could change for an other team, and in each case got through on time. She carries mail pouches each way for Ashford, West Ashford, Mans
 field Four Corners, Mansfield Depot, North
 Coventry, Quarryville and Bolton. Be- sides these pouches, she has got nearly twenty of the private mail bags to collect up from the offices as she returns and place in their right boxes. Mail matter
 for these bags is placed in them when the
 mail from the large pouch is sorted at the
 preceding post-office. Then whatever mail
 matter she may have for the private mail
 boxes, she carries in her pocket until she
 reaches the box when she stops, and,
 placing it inside under the stone, hangs out the white flag as signal to the fam fly, when they may see it, that there is } mail matter there. Then of the open
 mail service, she has from forty to fifty letters each night to keep separate and ) deliver to their proper owners, who come