The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1908-01-17
PUT HIM TO
SLEEP
Experience OF Veteran TeIe-
graph Operator In the South

pher who gets about as close TO the
truth each time he talks as the Arctic
explorers get to the north pole on
each subsequent trip. II don't know
whether IL was from sentiment vi not
the banjo always being linked with
southern history, but anyway the
southern railway of which am speak
ing was completely equipped with ban
10 signals for the operation of trains
For spell the banjo signals
around Linlithgo station got out OF
whack and seemed to be going to the
eternal frankfurters. Just when some
fast special would be dashing through
Linlithgo going 2:40 on plank road
the pesky banjo signals would go ker.
slap to danger, bringing the fast spe
cial up on all tours, as 1t were. Then
hades would be tapped around Linlith'
go station with an eight-inch posthole
auger while the engineer ventilated
his views.
THE company sent signal experts
and testers of all kinds to try out the
sulky signals to no avail After this
sassiness of the signals had been go
ing on for a spell the night operator
on duty at Linlithgo got subject to at
tacks of drowsiness.
He just couldn't make his eyes
behave. Every night about IL o'clock
he would drop off into the soundest
slumber.
THE company couldn't stand for
any Little Bo-Peep in theirs. So the
boss asked me If wouldn't go down
to Linlithgo to try and straighten mat.
tiers out.
Il never like TO throw bouquets at
myself, but l will say that | had no
marks against my record. AS far as
wakefulness was concerned | was lit
tie Lord Fauntleroy on the job. Never
theless, when | got to doing the
night work at Linlithgo my reputation
for alertness or duty went by the
board.
Every midnight / would be at
tackled by drowsiness, and before long
l would be making a noise like Phila-
delphia. Then the first thing you know
I'd be holding up all the flower of the
time card
"One thing did notice. Every
morning we would find our stock of
copper and zines, used In the gravity
batteries, all nibbled up, as If they had
been attacked by mouse with some
sort Of smelter attachment inside. The
plot certainly was thickening.
IL got a good-sized mouse trap and
set it near the storage-battery closet,
properly baited with cheese. This
drowsiness still came over me every
midnight, and the depredations on the
electrical stores continued undated.
THE company was getting pretty
sore at me. l was just about ready to
pass up the whole thing and come
north when / ran short of ordinary
cheese to bait the mouse trap one
night and was forced to bait my trap
with a piece of peek-a-boo, open work
Swiss cheese.
Along about IL 80 my usual drowsy
spell came on. / was just reciting
Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight, in
my dreams, when | heard an awful
commotion out near ms mouse trap.
Struggling hard TO overcome the
sleepy feeling, which grew more over.
towering as | drew nearer to the trap.
| ran out, and can tell you | was the
most surprised man you ever saw to
find an electrical eel all twisted up in
that piece of Swiss cheese. You see
the ordinary cheese never bothered
him at ALL but he attempted to crawl
through the holes Of the golf-course
7 cheese in order to get at the electrical
stores and got all tangled up.
THE mystery of Linlithgo station
was solved. You see a couple of cleo.
trio cells had wriggled their way from
the ditch along the railroad into the
electric signal system, and after hav
ing once gorged themselves on the
current which is so essential to their
system they just couldn't leave ii
alone.
Then they got wise to the storage
closet up in the station, and wriggled
up there every night to replenish the
dying electrical embers in their bodies
at the expense of the company. The
peculiar electrical currents they ex
uded from their bodies had the same
effect as that new electrical anaes
thetic the scientists are experimenting
with now. 1t put all the operators
who worked at Linlithgo to sleep.
IF that eel hadn't got tangled up
in the meshes of that Swiss cheese
the mystery never would have been
solved. | guess that's about the most
peculiar and withal true electrical oc
currence on record"
Say" put in the tall, cynical con
ductor, there must be some of them
cells gettin' in their fell work on this
division, for had to stop an wake up
no less than six operators in a dis
lance of 40 miles last night"
---