Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1904-08-18

THE railroad had killed her muley
l. COW, and the railroad had got to
pay for it-so said Mrs. Bilger.
Mrs. Bilger was a widow lady resid-
ing in the suburbs of Grafton, on the
hills of southern California. Grafton
is not an imposing place. 1t is situated
in a hole in the woods moved out by
the sawmill, which forms it's principal
industry. The business life in Grafton
consists in feeding this sawmill, and,
as it is not a large one, the town can
not be called %populous even at its CEN
ter. The situation of Mrs. Bilger's
place, in the outskirts, would have rea-
sonably been called retired if it had
not been for the fact that the P. D. &
@. railroad ran through her front yard.
In this way a good proportion of the
population of the United States passed
through Mrs. Bilger's dooryard. Few,
however, stopped, except when some
train got stalled at the foot of the grade
before her house. The P. D. & @. en-
gines can climb almost anything but
a tree, but occasionally in the winter
they had to take two or three starts
at this grade; it was the worst on the
whole road. Occasionally, also, Mrs.
Bilger had calls from railroad men,
who stopped to drink at her celebrated
spring.
The late Mr.. Bilger had left his
widow hor email hpY,co o,J oIoors0~
an ei~ght-year-old son, a d%ouble-bar-
relied shotgun, and her muley COW. A
few melancholy hens completed the in
ventory of the estate. Mrs. Bilger,
who was a woman of character, made
the best of her %our She herself
tickled the shallow surface of her por-
ton of the earth till it burst forth
every summer into a sickly grin of
scanty potatoes and corn, while her
conscientious hens converted the minor
b%y-products of the farm into market
able produce. Her main trust, however,
had always been put in her muley COW,
who had furnished her a good supply
of milk, for which she found a ready
sale.
This muley cow would probably not
have taken a prize on fancy points at
a cattle show; still she was a patient,
industrious animal, and a good pro-
wider. But at last, unfortunately, the
extreme scarcity of provisions drove
her to night work, and she wandered
onto the railroad track and uninten-
tionally a against a freight train in
the dark. In the morning Mrs. Bilger
discovered little more than a fine line
of Hamburg steak stretching towards
the western horizon. 1t was a partic-
ularly hard blow to her, because she
was on the v of accepting a fattering
offer Of $13 for the animal.
There was no doubt in Mrs. Bill
gers mind from the first that the rail-
road would have to settle for her COW.
So she informed the station agent the
very day following the accident, and
after protracted negotiations, which
nearly lost the station agent his din
ner, the latter agreed to forward a de-
mand for settlement to headquarters.
Mrs. Bilger didn't see why he couldn't
settle for her martyred COW on the
spot, but she was willing to make rea-
sonable concessions. Her final price
was $23.
So, after awhile, the station agent
forwarded her demand to the division
superintendent, and after awhile the
division superintendent forwarded it to
the division claim agent, and after
awhile the division claim agent decided
he would send out a man to look up
the case. A railroad company does
not take unnatural haste in settling up
the claims of a poor, ignorant widow.
This railroads fatal mistake was that
II did not know what kind of a widow
it was dealing with.
1t took about three weeks in all for
the railroad officials to get around to
Mrs. Bilger's case, and Mrs. Bilger, de-
priveI of her chief means of susie
nance, was naturally becoming some
what dangerous. She viewed with in
creasing displeasure the railroad men
in general, and especially those who
came to get water from her famous
spring.
"Wall, eff they amt got gall" she
was accustomed to say to her Willie in
this interval, killing old muley COW,
and then comm here to get our water"
Finally she decided to give her ulti-
matum.
Here, you," she said, when the sec
ton hands came up one noon for their
daily supply, you get out Of thar.
You don't get no more water out Of my
spring till you pay for my muley cow
you killed"
what muley COW? We amt killed
no muley cow" said the astonished