The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-09-27
IN A RAILROAD WAITING ROOM.
A weighing Machine Episode That VA
Some what Out Of the Usual.

To one man all this appeared as q pan
tomime. He sat near enough to see all
that the actors did, and far enough away
80 that he couldn't hear their voices when
they spoke.
The scene was the waiting room Of
railroad station, the actors youthful
looking mother, who must have been 80
or thereabouts, and her son, a tall lad, ap-
parently about II. A passive actor was
an infant Of perhaps three months. whom
the youthful appearing mother held in
her arms.
The action revolved about a weighing
machine, one Of the kind that pops out to
you, when you have stepped on the platform
and dropped cent in the slot. your weight
stamped on little piece OF cardboard.
The mother stepped up first on the
weighing machine, still holding the precious
infant in her arms-she never would have
thought of giving that into anybody else's
care; and then her son put cent in the slot
for her, and out popped the little card with
! her weight on It. Then she stepped down,
and she and her son looked at the card
and noted the weight stamped on 1t. and
then the son stepped up on the platform
| then they both looked at that with evident
| interest.
! And then suddenly something occurred
to the boy and he threw up one hand in
| front Of his mother and pointed to the
baby in his mothers arms and said some
thing at which they both laughed. The
mother had been weighed with the child
in her arms, a fact which they at this mo-
| ment had for the first time realized.
| Then they set out to weigh the baby.
| The mother sat him down on the platform
Of the scales and was going to hold him
there, for, Of course, the baby wasn't old
| enough to sit up, but you couldn't get his
exact weight If you held him so. and finally
the mother tried laying him down on the
scales. And that was the oldest thing that
| this observer had ever seen on weighing
machine. baby lying diagonally across
trailing off on the floor.
But the mother didn't let the infant lie
there more than about quarter OF Sec
| ond for the instant she lifted her hands the
infant threw up one little arm and instantly
the mothers arms descended upon him
again. No. it never would do in the world
to let the baby lie there unprotected long
enough to he weighed, and she picked him
UP at once.
Then. as she stood there holding him
the problem of how TO get her own separate
weight still lnsuived, another idea strucf
them both. the boy and her, at once. ap.
parently, and this idea made them both
laugh again, as the boys discovery that she
had been weighed with tho child in he;
arms had done. This last idea was that tht
son could hold the infant while she Iwas
getting weighed. And straightway she
handed the baby over to the boy and stepped
on the scales and dropped cent in the
| slot and this time got her own true weight
and then. stepping down from the plat form
she had the baby back safely in her arms
again in n moment.
Then tho mother and son. who appeared
TO he great friends. smiled at each Other
again They had got a surprising lot Of
fun out OF this little weighing machine
episode, which had, indeed, been far from
uninterest ing to those OF the waiting pas
sensers who had CHANGED to be citing near