The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1898-03-05
CLOSE SLAVES ON THE Raj

How the Oil Train Passed the Pow
der Train and the Incidents.
The train had pulled up on time,
and there was a ten-minute wait for
an t'extra.'' Old Greyspot stepped
down from the locomotive, and be-
gan to stretch his legs. He had just
come from visit to Antietam bat
tile field, and felt pretty good.
There's lots O. pleasure in goin'
over places where you fit," said he
to the Old Brakeman with wink
at the New Brakeman. II tell you
there's a regular spice-box of fun in
it,
ssHow so?' said the Old Brakeman,
Il was one of them drafted fellows,
but I kind O. shut off the draft and
didn't fight worth a cent
The engineer, who had slowed up
to allow the interruption to pass,
went on at full speed
s'Well, down there you can see the
very holes you crawled into when the
rebs were a pepperin' ye, and-."'
"See here" ,"said the New Brakeman,
|inquisitively, "why is it they call YOU
/ E.Grayspot'? Did that spot Of hair
over your left temple turn gray on
the battle field?"
s'Ha! ha! laughed the engineer. He
Hooked at his watch. He still had
Eeight minutes. He gave a searching
glance at the New Brakeman, put
his hand against his locomotive to
steady himself, winked at the Old
Brakeman, and went on ..
/. well, young feller, I've had some
trials ip ny time calculated to turn
Ia teller's hair: gray. For instance,
when I was runnin' lie out there in
lthe Western section Of this ,eiresyery
State of Pennsylvania, / had as live
y quarter Of an hour as ever an
sold sojer boy need want.
''Tell us about it, said the Old
Brakeman, who wasn't listening at
all, but who wanted to placate the
engineer.
''Well, it was this way. You see I
was running one of them wobblety
tank trains and we were comm
down the track hell bustin'."
"By jeemini!' said the New Brake
man.
"Oh, yes! they're very wobblety,
them tank trains, as wobblety as
our old General George B. was at
Antietam. You see there's science
in loading them tanks, jest as in
loadip' a boat. If you load a ship
lopsided she sails away and you
never hear of her no more. You may
wonder why she don't come to port,
and you may fuss about it, but she
never shows up
"Well, I declared" said the New
Brakeman: "but what's that got to
do with tank cars?"
! The engineer looked with an ap-
pealing glance toward the Old Brake
man, but that ordinarily sympathe-
tic and attentive person was skin
inlng q banana.
'See here" said the engineer,
"don't you realize that if you stop a
tank when it's goin' at forty-mile
an hour all the lie in it will slop up
to the front end and give such a jar
as to jolt the heels off your boots?
Well now suppose you have ten or a
dozen of them same stinkin', mean
tanks a-wobblin' behind ye, what do
ye feel like I'd like to know? So
when man has q tank train he
wants as little wobblir' as possible
and runs on schedule time.
Gone nightI was runnin' 'on sched-
ule' when Jim Patton Che was
squelched in that Hellersburg smash
up)come crawlin' over and says:
That there middle cars smokin' and
Pm thinkin' that there tarnal
wood pin we was talkin' about has
got afre.'
e.They know better now and use
steel pins; but You see, young fellow
we get along in life bekase of these
here grey spots. =
The New Brakeman acquiesced,
and asked: Did your train get
afre?'' 7
What! Afre? Good jehosophat!
l hope may never live to see sich
as that which followed mighty soon
after poor old Jim notified me. I
looked back! Saw a great big squirt
o fre-one OF those spurts like you
see comm out of an iron foundry's.
smoke stack I slowed up an We cut
off the three or four cars on the tail
end Of the train and let EN- run off
on a siding We were sure Of saving
them, and ! knoYed Of anouher lay
of switch a mile ahead, and began
to feel as if we wouldn's lose but
that there lie car that was on fire.,
or maybe two of them, for the next
] one TO It was get ting pretty hot-so
q let her rip!'