The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-02-20

/ old cities in the country long enough
/ to know all the hotels and boarding
houses in each of them by heart. Lots
of ladies ask, for instance, if the table
of the Umtarara house in Pittsburg is
as good as the grub served out in the
| Smokette hotel in the same town.
never let on that l don't know a thing
about ii, but toss out whatever reply
seems to be wanted by the questioner.
/ | did confess to an elderly lady last
/ week that | really didn't know the lat
+ est schedule of cab fares in Omaha,
| and she asked me why l didn't resign
my job and let some man have it who
knew something. A few days ago an
other elderly lady with corkscrew ring
! let's asked me if l thought the 'Mardy
Grass festivities down in New Orleans
were too diSgraceful to permit of a re-
/ spectacle unmarried lady remaining in
that city in seclusion until the cele-
bration was over. l told her that if
she'd lock herself up in her room, prob
ably NO harm nd come to her. They
bring their tickets for sleeping car
| berths here to me. do some of the la
dies, and ask me what sort of person
is going to occupy the other half of the
section to which they are assigned. and
when I pass it up they look at me as
| If they regarded me as a dismal frost
Z
ton man.
Since this window was started the
train callers don't answer any ques-
lions at all and they pass ali of the
travelling colored people who want to
know things about me. They ask some
queer questions. Last week an aid
nanny, with one of those black-var-
nished and greene agle-ornamented va
Uses tightly clutched in her hands and
an old-time red bandana tied around
her head. same up to the window and
asked me:
DO yo' all know much bout Loud'n
county?'
L told the old nanny that 1 knew
something about the trains that pass
through Loudoun county.
- But dat ain whit All wanted tub
know she said. An he'd uh son-he
names 'Zekeel Jackson-dat dun got it
into he fool haid six year ago tub go
down tub Loud'n county, an All
thought yo' all might know wheah dat
nigguh is now, SOS All kin fin him
Wen All gifts tub Leesbu'g.
I'D like to have helped the old
nanny out, but there's nothing doing
in the clairvoyantuline so far as / am
concerned.
People just arriving in Washington
come TO me with all sorts of inquiries,
and I'm seriously thinking of sand
bagging' the proprietors of a lot of no
tells here to which I'm the sole means of
sending slathers of guests. I've got
list of boarding houses and hotels in
Washington right in my own head that
l have use for twenty times a day, and
l think / ought to get a rake-off. l
even know the alleys and Afro-Ameri-
can settlements in this town to which
inquiring persons of color from Virgin
ia may be sent for lodgings.
Fresh ducks make their way up to
this window few times a day. I had
one of them this morning. He was a
countrifed-looking sport, with dead
new clothes on all over him, and he
had jag along with him. He leaned
over to me and said:
Shay, zis buroo inf'mashun, amt
ito
Yep I said.
"'Well. shay he went on, what 1
want fl out is zis: Was 1 married yis't'-
dy aft'noon, er wasn't 1? 'Nif so,
wheresh m wife,?
Pass it up l said. She's probably
started for South Dakota 10 sue for
divorce
But she hadn't. She showed up be-
fore 1 got through talking, and she was
about 43, with a face as hard as nails
and a pair of maulies on the ends of her
arms like an iron molders. The way
she yanked her jagged spouse through
the gate and aboard the western bound
train was worth watching