Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-10-25


he began repeating, and then the
dots and dashes came with such rap
idity as to severely tax my brain to
translate and follow him; hut this
was the exception rather than the
rule, for he generally repeated the
words at the same speed as they
were transmitted to him. He soon
reached that stage of proficiency
where he could repeat train orders
and seemed to appreciate fully their
Importance, being always particular
not to omit letter or figure that
the dispatcher had sent.
"Of course, Cricket Joe couldn't
manipulate the telegraph key. He
had to rest content to listen at what
was made by the operators on the
wire and then, by creating friction
between his front wings, disseminate
the stored up letters and words, imi-
tating the sounder with nicety only
approached by the most expert
telegrapher.
81 used to send entire chapters out
of the Bible to Cricket Joe for our
mutual delectation and he repeated
the Scripture with evident and un-
mistakable pious regard. He was
passionately fond of the Holy Writ,
and seemed particularly impressed
with proverbs, deligbting to repeat
at odd moments from that book, his
favorite quotations being S-33, OIL
and 1879.
zone morning left my office
earlier than usual and went to my
room in the Duval Hotel to 90 to
bed. | hadn't been asleep half an
hour when l was awakened by hear
ing my office telegraph call-'Wn.'
This was repeated probably hun
dred times in quick succession and
was followed with the numbers '31'
the train order wire signal. The
Office call and the train order signal
were supplemented with the plead
ing For Gods sake answer" I
located the clicking at my chamber
window and made answer by striking
the iron couch with twenty dollar
gold piece, and the next instant l
heard the request: "Stop No. 13.'
CAT that my blood almost froze in
the veins. knew that No. T3 was
the Florida Limited, and growing
apprehensive of impending disaster,
| threw on my clothes and dashed,
barefoot, across the street to the pas
senger depot, reaching the telegraph
office just in time to drop the sema-
phore arm to red and stop No. 73,
which was then in sight, coming
down the track at speed of so miles
an hour. The conductor hadn't got
on the ground to inquire what was
wrong before the headlight of
northbound special showed up in the
yard quarter of mile away. The
special was fairly scorching the
wind, but the read light spelt danger,
and the engineer succeeded in bring
ing his train to standstill with the
nose of the locomotives cowcatcher
rubbing against that of the south
bound limited.
"The dispatcher had been calling
me all this time for dear life and
Cricket Joe's wings were work
ing overtime. The crews came in
the office, got clearance cards and
ten seconds after were hurrying to
their destinations. The passengers
were not awakened and never knew
what a close call they had had, they
never knew that they had been saved
from terrible death by a Palmetto
State cricket; they never knew that
the operator at Ridgeway went to
sleep and failed to flag down the
northbound special and give it a new
meet order, while the operator at
Blackstock was wide awake and de-
livered duplicate order to the
Florida limited to go on to Rockton
"a point between Winnsboro and
Ridgeway-whcre it would pass the