Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1897-09-16
A PECULIAR TRAIN.
A Travelling Mans Experience in q
GenrSia Country House.

Philadelphia drummer, "Ihad a strange
thing happen to me about month age
In Georgia. 1t didn't exactly happen
to me, either, but it was in my hearing.
/ had attempted to drive across country
to catch train at station which l
could not have reached otherwise, eX-
cept by long and tiresome detour over
n miserable piece of road-and when
a railroad in Georgia is bad it is bad
with any sort of an adjective for en-
phasis you choose. It was IL miles
and through a mountain gap, and it
was nearly dark when ] wound up by
getting lost and going the Lord knows
where till l struck a very fair two
story house that looked like it might
have been q summer hotel once upon
a time.
II asked the man who responded to
my call how far if was to the railroad
and he told me ten miles, and I had bet
ter light and stag all night. l light
ed and after bit of cold bread and
meat and a drink of 'moonshine' l went
to bed, tired enough to have slept on a
picket fence. 1t was then II O'clock
and about two hours later l was
awakened from my slumbers by hear
ing a train whistle apparently mile
or less away, and then rumble along,
coming nearer and nearer until sud
denly it stopped, and ] heard no more.
1 was too sleepy to give it much
thought, and rolling over I went to
sleep again, wondering why my host
had told me it was ten miles to the rail
road, unless it was 10 deceive me out of
the price of nights lodging.
"In the morning at breakfast men
toned the fact to him, and he laughed
in an uneasy kind of way and assured
me that it was ten miles to the railroad,
and / would think it was three times
that far after had driven over it. The
noise / bad heard, he said, was probably
the wind blowing down the chimney
and banging around the house, which
was old and open in many places. I
hadn't any more to say, and went on my
way to the railroad, reaching there in
three hours, and noticing all the way
that an old roadbed with the ties and
rails still on it in places lay near the
wagon road all the way to the station.
"At the station, while waiting for
my train, l got to talking with the sta
ton agent, who was a bright, sharp
chap, and incidentally [ asked him
about that railroad train. lie looked
at me quick as a wink, and asked me
the particulars, which told him.
I, ,rcI,+
was the night it always comes. When
the road was first built there was a
branch that run back up in that coun-
try to place about two or three miles
beyond that house, to a kind of a
summer resort up there. Mineral
springs and a waterfall. Excursions
for a day used to go up there from
towns down the road here and up the
other way. Ten years ago tonight an
excursion was coming back from there
and just about the neighborhoOd of
that house the engineer saw an OBJ
struction on the track that was going
to throw the whole shebang over the
bank, and whistling down brakes and
cutting his engine loose he went
track. Of course he and his engine
went with it, and neither of them was
ever more used after that racket; but
the train was saved, and that was
enough for man to die for, because
there were 200 women and children in
the excursion.
"'It was shown that some Of the peo-
L. !. I
to wreck the train, and it spoiled the
excursion business. There was coal
on the branch that kept the last nine
or ten miles of it in operation for few
years longer, but there was never an
other passenger train to go over the
place where the engineer was killed.
That is to say, never another train that
anybody ever saw; but there has been
one 90 over the spot, or rather go to it
and stop, one night in every year for
the past ten years. / have heard it, and
so have the men in that house and you,
| but no more that I know of, because
his nearest neighbor is three miles
away and nobody ever gets in that
neighborhood to stay all night. I sup
pose I would not have been there if he
| had not asked me as a friend to come
| up on one of the anniversary nights and
hear it, so he could talk to me about it
and advise with me whether to move
| away or stick it out. I advised him to
| stay and had very near forgotten all
about it, for really the subject hasn't
| come to my notice in four or five years,
and you can wager money I never went
| back there to listen to it any more. I'll
! be blamed if I couldn't see that en-
| gineer and his engine whirling to de-
struction the night, l stayed there, be-
cause I knew what to expect and sat
up to wait for it with every nerve at its
highest tension. Darn queer kind OF
a ghost, isn't it?'
II told him I thought it was," con-
rluded the drummer, land when I sug-
gested to him that I might perhaps tell
the story to some one else and it might
get into the newspapers, he laughed
and said that was just the same as
keeping it a dead secret, for nobody in
that neighborhood took newspaper OF
could read one if he did5'-Washing ton
Star.
| The Frog Crop.
The frog crop at present is wholly
wild, and the bulk of it is marketed IL
Philadelphia and New York. Missouri
| is the great frog producing state. The