Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1906-02-13
Has Ridden on 1t Every Day, Rain
or Shine, for Fifteen Years.

Has Ridden on 1t Every Day, Rain
or Shine, for Fifteen Years.
We were travelling through Texas
and stopped at a little settlement in
the woods. The only passenger that
boarded the train at the stopping place
was an old man, and when we say old
we mean very old, says the Kinsleyi
Mercury. He seemed a relic Of ante
diluvian times, as much out of place
on a railway as q mastodon would be
in modern menagerie. He did not
seem to be travelling for pleasure. The
passing landscape had no interest for
him.
When the conductor came through
he seemed inclined to ignore the old
man and pass him without collecting
the fare. The old man, however, de-
clined to be ignored. From an inside
pocket he produced a worn and greasy
account book and from that extracted
a pass that was nearly worn to rags.
The conductor, with an air Of impa
thence, looked at it carelessly and
passed on. The old man, apparently
satisfied that he had forced the con-
ductor to note the fact that he had
pass, sank back into his senile reverie
and rumination. At q station about
thirty miles up the road he got off,
moving slowly and with difficulty.
The possession of a pass by one so
little likely to have it excited our curl
Osity, and we dug the history of 1t
out of one Of the brakemen. When the
road was building through that coun-
try the old man owned a piece Of land
through which it was desired to obtain
a right Of way. The old man fought
the company vigorously and refused to
give or sell them a right Of way
through his land except on condition
that he have a pass. Not an annual,
but life pass.
The company tried to bluff him, but
the old man didn't bluff worth a cent,
and when the company started to build
across his land the old man came out,
with the old rife he had carried at
San Jacinto and cheerfully informed
the foreman that he would shoot the
first man that trespassed on his land.
The old man was then 70, and as his
tenure of a life pass promised to be
short the company finally agreed to his
terms. The road was completed, and
the old man, by virtue of his pass,
rode on the first train through, which
was, by the way, the first railroad
train he had ever seen.
That was fifteen years ago, and ev-
cry day, rain or shine since then the
old man has ridden on that road,
sometimes in one direction, sometimes
in the other, but never further than
would enable him to get home the
same Gay on the next train coming
back. His life pass has been worn al
most to shreds. Every conductor on
the road knows him ana would fain
dispense with the trouble Of taking his
the company shall treat him just as 1t
would any other passenger and always
inists on presenting his pass and hav-
ing it entered in the conductors book.
The brakeman said that the old man
had received from So to So worth of
transportation every day for fifteen
years, and, while he looked feeble, he
would probably get the worth of that
pass. The station where he gets on
Is a flag station, which makes it all
the more aggravating, as nine times
out of ten he is the only passenger the
train has to stop for, and every time
train stops it means a loss of dol
lars in stopping and starting.