Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1904-01-11

car was fitted with every convenience
dear to the smokers heart. This car
also contained a first class tonsorial
parlor. One genetle an told me he
crossed the continent seven times
before he dared be shaved on the
moving train. The observation car
in the rear was fitted with platform
guarded with elaborate brass railing.
This made delightful place to sit at
any time, the weather was 50 warm. |
l stepped out there about six O'Clock |
in the state of Missouri just as we |
whizzed through the town where Mrs.
Booth Tucker was killed in the acct
dent only two weeks before. The big |
steel water tank still carried the huge
gap made by one of the locomotives
which left the track at that point.
At Kansas City was much inter-
ested in the evidences of last sum-
mer's food. have since met several
of the food sufferers and / assure you
it seems much different to hear the
description given by the eye witnesses
than to read it two thousand miles
away in country where such things
are unknown. [ am told that at the
site of the Standard Oil Company's
tank, which weighed 100000 pounds,
the water was % feet deep and the
tank was washed away carrying eight
bridges with it before it found
Judgment. In all sixteen buildings
were washed away. saw many
buildings standing in various attitudes
where they were stopped bv trees or
banks. One gentleman told me about
his piano, which he found with one
leg sticking out of the window and
another leg through the floor into the
cellar. 1t evidently "halted between
two opinions"
We reached Kansas City about ten
O'Clock Sunday morning. After leav-
ing there we travelled all day in the
state of Kansas, and passed through
the famous corn belt. We saw
prairie fire, which was grand sight,
but it seemed wicked to see the huge
, stacks of hay destroyed in that man
} ner. I presume l saw some of the
identical farms that swallowed up our
> good Vermont capital a few years
{ since.
As we stood at the station at
3 Emporia, Kansas, the line of public
{ carriages drawn up at the platform
} reminded me of what Artemas Ward
t wrote about the carriages in Wash
t ington, D. O., about 1850:
7 s'Yonder four wheeled startlin' Gu
riosities we're used years and years
ago by the fust settlers of Virginia to
carry live hogs TO market in. The
L best carriage saw in the entire col
) lection was used by Pocohontas sum
two hundred years ago as a goat pen.
= Becumin' so used up that it couldn't
hold goats, that fair and gentle savage
put it up at auction. Subsekently it
was used as hospital for sick calves,
then as hen-coop, and finally it was
> put on wheels and is now doing duty
as hack"
Should any Emporians see this,
. trust they will take their medicine
gracefully.
4 We passed through the corner o.
!, Colorado during Sunday night, I thus
" missed seeing some grand Rocky
y Mountain scenery. Just before leav
N ing Colorado we passed over Rator
= Mountain at an elevation of 5000 feet
20 which is one of the highest points
n reached by train in the Rockies.
g left the train with reluctance a
10 LAmy to connect for Santa Fe, an
is received from the rear platform, a
t, the train sped away, the wavin
N adieux of many pleas ant peopl
with whom [ had travelled fror
r. Chicago.
Id AS left the train at 1920 a. m,
as glanced up to the barren hillsid
20 beyond the station and saw an oil
rn white horse standing motionless wit
head down. At 1870 when left Lam
70 he was still standing in the identics
position, sound asleep. I have sine
u learned from experience that TIL
I'd climate is conducive to sleep in tn
IL case of new corners, and perhaps th
nu poor old horse was a tenderfoot TOT
Wy quiee sabe?
- During my three hours wait :
Lamy l exercised my Yankee inquis
>. itiveness and learned much about tt
- railroadipg here. The employees c
the road are much better paid than
- the East, owing to the increase
danger from the treacherous mounta
- streams. 1t is frequent occurren'
to have cloudbursts in the mountai il
'oo which wash ont MANY hridpes III