The Florence tribune., 1897-06-05
IT RAINED OYSTER SOUP.
An Engineers Queer Yarn About Say.
 ing Hts Train.

ing Ills Train.
 He was more than an ordinarily ac- complished liar for an amateur, and they all knew it when they asked him for story. zine and saved train load of people with an oyster stew if you want to know, but I don't think of anything more exciting that that" he said, apolo- getically.
 That's good enough" they all de- clared. 'Give us that"
 "All right, then; here goes," he said, as he settled back in his chair. T was once engineer on road that ran for long distance through the forests of northern Wisconsin, and we were ire quently bothered by forest fires. They were particularly bad at the time I. speak of. One day had run through one big blaze, only to find that there was bigger one ahead. The worst of it was we were low on water, and there was no chance to fill the tank without dashing through the fire ahead of us.s I sent the fireman out to sec if we had enough to make the run, but he came back and told me the boiler was almost dry.
 T was puzzled for awhile. It was. death to all of us knew to stay there, ! but how to get out was the question Suddenly a happy thought struck me. There was q milk car just behind the first baggage. and made for it. How IasaoA mix have you got2' says to the fellow in charge. About 10 cans, l guess. he answered. Why do you ask2' Never mind, says I. Whats that in those cans in the corner2' 'Oy- sters. he answered. But why dc you want to know?' Mover you mind I told him, and then ordered the other train hands who had come up to see why we had stopped to tote that milk and those oysters up to the engine. They did it in spite of the kicking of the millman, and when they had brought them up I ordered them all chucked into the flank. The conductor came up, too, and declared it was fun ny notion to be making oyster stew in an engine boiler, when we were in dan ger of being burned alive, but I soon convinced him that it was necessary if we did not want to stay there and roast.
 'Well, we finally dumped in all the milk and all the oysters and started ahead. You ought to have smelled the steam that came back into that engine cab. It would have made you think of an old time church festival. Whewi how that soup did smell. It made the engine jump, though, and that was all we wanted. We got up great head of steam in no time, and the way we plunged through that next fire belt was a caution. As we pulled up at the sta ton just beyond opened up and began to whistle. A great cloud of oyster soup or vapor shot into the sky, of l course, and didn't come down till we were far out of sight. Then it settled like thick fog, oysters, soup and all. Everybody noticed it, of course, and there was country scientist in the 1 town who was sure it was the greatest l phenomenon of the age. It was rain ing oyster soup up there he was sure and the next issue of the weekly papers 1 were full Of it--not the soup burt tn, news of it. After the residents up thai way had all swallowed it--not the souI but the story-we told them about it and that was the silliest looking seient ist I ever saw. Chicago Iimes-Heral
 The average yearly loss from fires il
 the United States during the past 3' years has been about S100,000,o coo. Dur ing the past year, according to thu chronicled fire tables. there have beer 9s,oo3 fires, destroying 33,961 pieces O
 property. The total loss entailed hal been $142, ,110,23 with an insurance los. of ss4,6s9.O30 In this tall column