Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1906-07-07
By
FRANK HI.
SPEARMAN

Copyright. 1900, by s. S.
Mcclure Co.

| with the STOmaCu acne. AAlo hAAu Va
took the cuss off, but he was that Pc
culiar he would sit up all night with a
sick man and next day make everybody
sick talking the money question-at
least every body but Delaroo. If De
LARGO was bored he never showed 1t.
As long as Maize would talk Delaroo
would listen. That single word was. in
fact, the key to Delaroo. Delaroo was
listener; for that reason nobody knew
much about him.
He wasn't a railroad man by birth,
but by adoption. Delaroo came from
| the mountains; he was just a plain
mountain man. Some said his father
was a trapper; If so, it explained every
thing-the quiet, the head bent inquir-
ingly forward, the modest unobstrusive-
ness of a man deaf OF a size and
shape nothing remarkable, Delaroo-but
a great listener, for though he looked
like a deaf man he heard like dis
patcher and saw marvelously from out
the ends of his silent eyes, Delaroo
for all the world was trapper.
He came into the service as round
house sweeper; then Neighbor, after
long time, put him at wiping. Delaroo
said nothing, but wiped for years and
years and was in a fair way to be-
come liked when instead he became
one morning pitted with umbilical YES
| icles, and the doctors, with Delaroos
brevity, said smallpox. The boarding
| house keeper threw him out bodily and
at once Having no better place to go,
Delaroo wandered into Steve Boyer's
saloon, where he was generally well
come Steve however, pointed a hos
pitable gun at him and suggested his
getting away Immediately from the
front end of it. Delaroo went from
there to the roundhouse with his UNI
bilicals and asked Neighbor what a
man with the smallpox ought to do
with it. Neighbor wouldn't run, not
even from the smallpox, but he told
Delaroo what it meant to get the
smallpox started in the roundhouse,
and Delaroo wandered quietly away
from the depot grounds, a pretty sick
man then staggered up the yards and
crawled stupid into box car to die
without embarrassing anybody.
BY some hook or crook, nobody to
this day knows how, that car was
switched on to Maize SIMPSONS train
when it was made up that day for the
west. Maybe it was done as trick
to scare the windbag engineer. If SO,
the idea was successful. When the
hind end brakeman at the second stop
came forward and reported a tramp
with the smallpox in the empty box
car Maze was angry, but his curiosity
gradually got the upper hand This
man might be by some distant chance,
he reflected, P. Q. W. of A., or a
frater, or a fellow, or a knight or
something like, and when they stopped
again to throw off crackers and beer
and catchup, Maize went back and en-
! tered the infected car like lion tanner
to try lodge signals and things on him.
Maize advanced and gave the counter
sign. It was not cordially received.
| He tried another and another and an
other; his passes were lost in the air.
The smallpox man appeared totally
unable to come back at Maize with
anything. He was not only delirious,
but by this time SO frightfully broken
out that Maize couldn't have touched a
sound spot with Masonic signal Of
distress. Finally the venturesome en-
gineer walked closer into the dark
corner where the sick man lay-and
by heaven, it was the, Indian wiper
Delaroo!
When Maize Sampson got back into
the cab he could not speak-at least not
for publication. He was tearing mad
and sputtered like safety. He gath
cred up his cushion and a water bottle
and bottle that would explode if wa
ter touched it and crawled with his
plumber into the box car. He straight
ened Delaroo up and out and gave him
a drink and by way of sanitary pre-
caution took one personally for he him
| self had never had the smallpox-but
once. When he had done this little for
! Delaroo he finished his run and came
back to the Bend hauling his pest house
box car. The fireman quit the cab i'm
mediately after Maze exposed himself.
The conductor communicated with him
only by signals. The Anderson oper-
was bringing back a man with small
pox on 80, and when Maize, bullying out
Of the 264 cab, pulled into the division
| yard nobody would come. within
mile of him. He set out the box car
below the stock pens, cross lots from
his house up on the hill, and, not being
able to get advice from anybody else,
went home to consult Martie.
Though there were great many wo-
men in Medicine Bend, Maize Sampson
looked to but one, Martie, the little
washed out woman up at Simpsons
wife, mother, nurse, cook, slave-Mar-
tie.
No particular color hair; no particu-
lar color eyes; no particular color
gown; no particular cut to it. A plain
bit Of woman, mother of six boys,
large and small, and wife Of great
big wind bag engineering as three Of |