El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-09-27
On The Edge Of The Storm
How Rain As She Swept Through
Texas On That Sunday-Cast Thy Trou
The Train.

~~~~~~~
w, started from FL Paso on our jour
ney east on Friday because that was
Abe latest possible date for the other
WON Al whose NOBLE impulses are Kept
under con rol by the school schedule,
a law compared TO which the edicts OF
Abe Modes and Persisns we're as wax
In Q summer noon. For my part l.
could not decently object to the neces-
always held myself superior TO my
maternal parent on the ground that l
An not afraid OF any day of
the week-a superiority that
was never well proved because
In my own If airs the question whether
20 begin or not to BERN on Friday had
nevsr -Ieen a i'd my parent insist
ed that avoided It. However IL arose
now and there WAS nothing to do but
begin the journey on Friday or relio-
quish my one point Of superiority over
sne ranking member of my father q
family. So We went on Friday although
my mosher's fourth cousin who has
inherited more of her family than
have, shook his head N gloomy prog
nosticstion.
While We we're at tears and fish 10
our last dinner, the cousin came In AND
said that troubles had begun, the train
WAS two hours late. Which, we argued
gave US Q more leisurely time for din
ner and good byes, and we'd no notion
OF taking she Friday business seriously
and We nooted ct him. When We got
TO the station We discovered that our
train was being held up by . washous
some place in New Mexico and that q
new one was being made up 10 leave in
forty minutes.
Before we got on the train the bag
gage man scolded Us roundly for not
being able TO identify our trunks at
glance, said there'd been . man In
drunk the night before who could not
tell whether his trunk WAS twins or
one, or Q tool chest, and that the night
before that Q man had come IN two
minutes before train time and had TO
sort q noncommittsl trunk out from
fifty that were nos bis and that he, the
baggage mao, was tired OF people with
out their names on the ends of Sheir
trunks.
We assured him that ours were and
that for our part We were fatiRued with
baggage men who made It Q point to
pile up baggage name-ends-underneat
At which baggage man resorted that
We ought 20 have our names on both
ends and like IS not we'd mix our
Washington. His having the last
word bothered the other woman, but
as for me 1 thought him artistical
~ cross.
he might have been . Shakspereau
character a. he moved about swinging
his lantern and making giant shadows
In the dimly lit room. Blunt, Rruff
aud grumbling, he was perfectly and
entirely cross. The world one brushes
against rarely takes the trouble to say
its own mind SO freely: people will
whimper q little, complain monstrously
much, excuse, apologize. aud slip and
slide themselves out OF their duties and
are unpicsuresquely iudiffereps and not
nearly so interesting as the scoldipR
baggageman. But the other woman
adds the scolding to the Fridays res
possibility.
Ga the train we listed the fact that
the Pullman was old and ssuffy-we
consider ourselves entitled to an en-
sirely new and fresh Pullman every
time we buy q railroad ticket the
only noteworthy affi Lotion Of the irst
tive nty four hours. Otherwise the
trip was uneventful until we reached
the storm.
Since we arrived at our destination
in the east, whenever people have real
lied that We have lately journeyed up
from Texas. we have been asked about
the storm. The fret time 1 told th e
truth, which 1 propose to do now: the
second time / rocked the train a little
harder; the third time we barely es-
,sped death from falling telegraph |
pole that struck she window and poked |
nto the car; the fourth both Of Us had |
,ur hair turned gray In Q single night |
md made the locomotive play with
he back end OF she sleeper ae css
plays with It's tail. There l left the
tory IS 1 needed my Imagination for
,ther things.
Terrible "a the storm was In Calves
on. We VINO we're In the sleeper pull
ng across the plains to Houston,
barely realized that . storm was blow
ng- The second night OF our trip,
which was the storm Saturday, We
through gray, slauting, drenching
ain and went to sleep early, thankful
or the cool wet wind and for the dust
essnesss. About the gray of the
morning / swoke with q Consciousness
ha, the train WAS nos doing its
Iuty and had not been for
9%e xts si9s, We p psssss a. out it'll. Of
sstion, Shulenberg perhaps, and got
graph pole leaning nearly TO the
ground and wondered dimly why 1t
lad ever been put In at such sn angle.
The wind gathered itself into a par:i-
,ulsrly furious blast against the side
" the car and the train rocked. Il:
eemed to me 1 had never been in q
rain that rocked like that before and
thought slipped into my head and out
he same moment that we might tip
,ver, and 1 was asleep.
The wind was like gale at sea but
c never occurred to me to be afraid
" anything happening to the train,
,r to stsy awake worrying over II.
There is so rarely any danger In rail-
way travel. Trains fly back and forth
across the continent, outstrippiog the