Connecticut western news., 1895-10-24
A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.
The Conductor Tells a Thrilling Tale of
 Danger on the Track.

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 The Conductor Tells Thrilling Tale of
 Danger on the Track.
 "Yes," said the conductor, biting of the tip Of cigar and scratching a match on his leg. "I've seen great deal of rail- road life that's interesting and exciting in tbe 90 years that I've been twisting brakes an slamming doors for living.
 "rve seen all kinds of sorrow and all kinds of joy-seen the happy bridal couple starting out on their wedding tour with the bright and hopeful future before them, and the black robed mourner on her way to a new made grave, wherein she must bury the idol of her lonely old heart.
 Wealth and pinching poverty ride on the same train, and the merry laugh of the joyous, healthy child Is mingled with the despairing sigh of the aged. The great antipodes of life are familiar to the con- ductor, for every day the extremes of the world are meeting beneath his eyes.
 "I've mutilated the ticket of many a blackleg and handled the passes of all of our most eminent deadheads. I don't know what walk of life is more crowded with thrilling incidents than mine"
 "Eyei have any smash upsS"
 "Smash upsP Oh, yes, several of them. None, however, that couldn't have been a good deal worse.
 "There is one incident of my railroad llfe," continued the conductor, running his tongue carefully over a broken place in the wrapper of his cigar, "that never spoke of before to any one. It has caused me more misery and wretchedness than any one thing that ever happened to rue In my official career.
 "Sometimes, even now, after the lapse of many years, awake in the night with the cold drops of agony on my face and the horrible nightmare upon me, with It's terrible surroundings, as plain as on tho memorable night 1t occurred.
 1T was running extra on the Union Pacific for conductor who was an old friend of mine and who had gone south on vacation for his health.
 'At about 2. 30 o'clock, as near as I can remember, we were sailing along all oom- fortable one evening, with straight stretch of track ahead for 10 or 15 miles, running on time and everybody feeling tiptop, as overland travellers do who get acquainted with each other and feel con- genial. All at once the train suddenly slowed down, ran in on an old siding and stopped.
 "Of course I got out and ran ahead of the engine to see what the matter was. Old Thompson, the engineer, had got down and was on the main track looking ahead to see where, twinkling along about six or seven miles down the road apparently, was the headlight of an approaching train. It was apparently wild for nothing was due that we knew of at that hour.
 However. we had been almost miracu- lously saved from frightful wreck by the engineers watchfulness, and everybody went forward and shook old Thompson by the hand and cried and thanked him till 1t was the most affecting scene for a while that ever witnessed. It was as though we had stopped on the very verge of a bot tomless chasm, and everybody was laugh ing and crying at once, till 1t was kind of a cross between a revival and picnic.
 After we had waited about half an hour, I should say, for the blasted train to come up and pass us, and apparently she was no nearer, g cold, clammy suspicion be- gan to bore itself into my intellect. The more thought of it the more unhappy I felt. I almost wished that were dead. Cold streaks ran up my back, followed by hot ones. I wanted to go home, where the prying eyes of the great throbbing world could not see me.
 "I called Thompson to one side and said something to him. He swore softly to himself and kicked the ground and looked st the headlight still glimmering in the distance. Then he got on his engine, and yelled, All aboardi' In few moments we were moving again, and the general impression was that the train ahead was sidetracked and waiting for us, although there wasn't a side track within 20 miles except the one we had just left.
 "It was never exactly clear to the pas sengers where we passed that wild train, but didn't explain it to them. was too much engrossed with my surging thoughts
 Inever felt my own inferiority so much as did that night. Inever so fully realized what a mere speck man Is upon the bosom of the universe.
 "When I surveyed the starry vault of heaven and considered its illimitable space, where, beyond and stretching on and on forever, countless suns are placed as centers, around which solar systems are revolving in their regular orbits, each little world peopled perhaps with its teem- ing millions of struggling humanity, and with other and mightier systems of worlds revolving about these systems, tih the mind is dazed and giddy with the mighty thought and then when I compared all this universal magnificence, this brilliant aggregation of worlds and systems of worlds, with one poor, groveling worm of the dust, only little insignificant atom, Only poor, weak, errlng, iaIlDle, Dunu, groping railroad conductor, with my train peacefully side tracked in the gathering gloom and patiently waiting for the planet Venus to pass on the main track, there was something about the whole somber picture that has overshadowed my whole life and made me unhappy and wretohed while others were gay.
 Sometimes old Thompson and myself meet at some liquid restauran and silently take something in memory of our great sorrow, but never mention 1t. We never tear open the old ranking wound or laugh over the night we polite.y gave the main track to Venus while we stood patiently | on the siding. ."-Chicago Inter Ocean.