The age-herald., 1900-11-21
SKETCHES FROM
 EVERYDAY LIFE


 "I began life,' said one of the cfty's of fcials, "as a brakeman on a passenger train on the Ellen N I was young in those days and greatly impressed with my personal appearance. Naturally did as much primping as the circumstances per- fnitted. had to wear blue uniform and a cap with metal tag. on which was print ed the word brakeman in letters large enough to have been read across the street. I was very extravagant with collars, and finding them hard to keep clean and my laundry bill large bought me celluloid collar, which in my desire to appear neat washed two or three times a day.
 'rhe conductor on my train was mar ried man, very quiet and sober fellow, and the porter was a negro black as the ace of spades. Consequently I had no opposition in my efforts to firt now and then with a. good looking girl, who happened to be a passenger I used to walk through the car in the most fetching way I could think of, and occasionally some girl would call me conductor and ask some useless question. Whenever I was addressed in this way as conductor, with my tn badge of fagman flaring on my cap. always knew things were coming my way
 T remember once particularly pretty girl had caught my eye and addressed me as conductor. I was putting my best foot foremost in the endeavor to please her. suppose I must have overdone it, for a sedate and dried up lookig woman who wore glasses and sat just across the aisle 
 call me down.
 "As I was passing through the car she stopped me and addressed me as porter. Madam I replied, the porter is in the forward car.' Please call him. she said. I went forward and sent the porter back.
 The porter came in looking like an ani- mated silhouette. She really did not want him, but made him raise window or do some little thing.
 "Thereafter, whenever I passed through the car,, she would always stop me and ask some silly queston about how far it was to this place, and what time we reached that, etc, always managing during the conver- sation to address me as porter 'Of course that queered' me with the girl. could see her trying to suppress a smile, and I never have and never will for give that old woman.
 Some people are just mean naturally.
 
 How long have I been a motorman? Six years next December Do I like 1t? suppose so. Any way I have been at it so long that I'm not good for anything else" Here he suddenly put e4sAbrakes to keep from running over a pig. The car was passing through the country, the weather was fine and the life of a motorman who could get out of the dust of the city and obtain a breath of fresh air seemed rather desirable.
 This front platform is a bad place for weather in the winter" he went on. "I have often got so covered with sleet and ice that my overcoat would stand up as well by itself as If I were in it. You just can't hold up enough clothes to keep you warm.
 "rhe longest time I ever worked at one stretch was thirty-two hours. It was sleeting and showing and we had to keep the cars running all day and all night to keep the line open. At the end of that time I so stiff I couldn't move, and had to be lifted off the car. Once for two months I worked from 5 o'clock to 7:3O daily.
 During the six years I have worked I
 
 forty-five days The first time I was sus- pended for upsetting a car. I tried to make a running switch. I did not get the switch far enough over and the front wheels went on one track and the rear wheels on the other and the turned over. I was next suspended for tearing down about a hundred yards of trolley wire. One of the fastenings of the wire was loose and my trolley pole caught 1t and pulled 1t down.
 Have I ever killed anything? Yes, two cows, one horse and about dozen hogs. I | never killed anybody, though I once ran into a buggy containing a man and 8 woman. The collision cost the company | $400. The fact of the matter is the man was drunk and it being in the night had lost his way. Our track ran close to a ditch and he had got into the ditch, a sp1ace I never would have thought of look ing for vehicle. The car struck the bug gy and jammed it into a trolley pole. When they showed me the pieces of the buggy in court I really felt mortified they were so small.
 q have had alIsorts of complaints made against me. People will go to the office and say that they were standing right on the crossing signaling the car and that I r would give them the horse laugh and go right by, leaving them alone in the world. | Then, people who live along the line ex- pect me to know by intuition when they want to get a car, whether they are in I their houses or not. A successful motor man must be a mind-reader and a clair voyant.
 -''The most unique complaint ever had made against me was by woman She went to the office and told them that she had been a passenger on my car and that had drunken negro on the car reeing about and collecting fares as conductor. and that every time he collected fare he would join me on the front platform and we would take a drink together Of course,