Connecticut western news., 1894-06-14
CATCHING A TRAIN.

It was my first day on the wheat prairie of North Dakota. I had left Far 10 at 5 o'clock in the morning on one of she two daily trains westward and had stopped at Castleton, 20 miles from the 'Phenix City of the Northwest. Thence I had tramped back across the prairie two miles to see the Dalrymple farm, the greatest in the world, 80, 900 acres under cultivation. By 9 o'clock in the morning I had seen all there was to be seen in the process of thrashing and so retraced my steps to Castleton.
 At the station was informed that the next means of getting back to Fargo was by freight train leaving at about 3 o'clock. a..a.-
 There are no art galleries or cathe- drals in Castleton- There are a dozen or two stores and hotel 1 entered the hotel with the air of abandon and gen eral superintendence usually ascribed to commercial travellers, sat down ill the office and picked up day before yester- days St Paul paper. An old man with white whiskers sat in the sun reading the day before that's paper. He was evidently pioneer, who had so long been away from the more civilized re- gions that he Jagged little ill the his tory of the world. However, I was glad to see one guest at least in the hotel among the wheatfelds.
 By way of introducing myself to the old gentleman cracked a few jokes on the sleepiness of the town and the dingi- ness of the hotel, but little later real ized that my remarks were i'll directed, by finding that he was proprietor of the establishment "Never mind, thought I, ''it will be all right if take dinner here" The old gentleman S face showed an animated interest as he informed me, in response to a question, that dinner would be served at half past 12.
 was now wearied of reading stale news, so went out and took five min- utes' walk to the end of the main street and back. Next I bought a novel and went out upon the prairie and spent a couple of hours reading. Killing time ! in Dakota town found not to be so | exciting as the same occupation in Chi | cago or London. About noon wandered back to town and got stranded on some | | self so completely with grapes and peaches that I never once thought of dinner at the hotel. The old landlord must have been grieyously disappointed, but did not see him again.
 I talked with the clerk in the store, read some more and cursed the Northern Pacific until nearly o'clock. Then sauntered over to the station, and after waiting a half hour for the train in quired of the station agent as to what time could get away.
 l He replied, Not until the f o'clock through freight comes. '' The o'clock was way freight and had been de- layed, he explained.
 I moralized on the inoonveniences of travel in a new section of the country and set about using up another two hours. found that had somehow got some spots of wheel grease on my clothes and managed to spend a comparatively pleasant hour scrubbing out the spots with naphtha at the town drug store. Then read some more.
 Att o'clock went over to the station again and finally plucked up courage to ask the rather irritable agent about the train. He deigned to tell me, as if tired of seeing me around, that the train wouldn't be along until 5. Now I had a companion in my misery, for lady, with two little girls, was waiting for the next train to Fargo.
 Our common annoyances served to introduce us, and we talked of the har- vesting and so on, deriving some in formation, as sf.e was resident of the region. At o'clock the train was not in sight, and the station man positively refused to know anything or to have any opinion as to the prospect of our getting away. I offered the lady my book and sat and reflected on the happiness of life in that section, getting up occasionally to look out upon the fiat prairie to see ii the train had yet risen above the hori- zon. There was nothing but the two rails stretching away till they converged into one, and then that was lost to the eye.
 Once in awhile the lady and the little girls got up to look. Finally she all. nounced that she could see see smoke iI the distance. My eyes were not so good, but we watched eagerly, and after some minutes I acknowledged with great pleasure that she was right. We watched the smoke solidify into a train, which grew larger and larger until at last il rolled along, and at precisely 6 o'clock the engine came to standstill few feet beyond the station on a side track , The caboose intended for passenger: , was, of course, at the rear end of tn r train and seemingly a quarter of mil
 away.
 By this time several men and boy 1, had gathered on the scene, apparentI
 wishing to go to Fargo. No one seeme
 to want to walk away back to the ca
 boose, and every one was very anxiou ' not to get left. At this moment anothe
 freight train, hitherto unnoticed, cam
 booming along on the main track
 Things were getting muddled. Woul = the second train stopf Would the firs = nrill m to the station to aocommodai