Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1908-07-14

Az2as4S9 He who begins his career
- with 4 shovel in a loco
motive cab usually has something of
| that sort to look back upon. There are
no roses along the pathway he has
| traversed In the end, perhaps. he
| wonders if it has been worth while.
| David Gable was a general manager.
| He had been fireman. 1t had required
| twenty-five years of hard work on his
| part to break through the chrysalis.
| Packed away in chest upstairs in his
| house there was grimy. greasy, I'M
| wholesome suit of once blue overalls.
| The garments were just as old as his
| railroad career for he had worn them
on his first trip with the shovel. When
his wife implored him to throw away
| the "detestable things" he said. with
characteristic humor, that he thought
| he would keep them for 4 rainy day.
| 1t was much simpler to go from gen.
eral manager to fireman than vice
versa, and it might be that he would
need the suit again. 1t pleased him to
hear his wife sniff contemptuously.
| David Gable had been a hayward,
venturesome youth. His father and
mother had built their hopes high with
him as a foundation, and he had proved
| a decidedly insecure basis, for one
night in the winter of 1868 he stole
away from his home in New York
Before spring he was fighting in the
far southland, boy of sixteen carry
| ing a musket in the service of his
country.
At the close of the civil war Private
Cable, barely eighteen. returned to his
| home, only to find that death had de-
stroyed its happiness. His father had
died. leaving his widowed mother de-
pendent upon him. 1t was then phile-
sophically he realized that labor alone
could win for him, and he stuck TO it
with rigid integrity. In turn he be-
came brakeman and fireman. Finally
his determination and faltnfulness won
him firemans place on one of the
fast New York Central runs" If ever
he was dissatisfied with the work, no
one was the wiser.
Railroading in those days was not
what it is in these advanced times.
Then it meant that one was possessed
of all the evil habits that fall to the
lot of man. David Gable was more or
less contaminated by contact with his
rough, ribald companions of the rail,
and he glided moderately into the bad
habits of his kind. He drank and
"gamboled' with the rest of the boys;
but, by nature not being vicious and
low, the influences were not hopelessly
deadening to the better qualities of his
character. To his mother he was al
ways the strong, good hearted, manly
boy better than all the other SONS in
the world. She believed in him. He
worshiped her, and it was not until he
was well up in the twenties that he
stopped to think that she was not the
only good woman in the world who de-
served respect.
Up in Albany lived the Widow Cole
man and her two pretty daughters.
Mrs. Coleman's husband died on the
battlefield, and she, like many women
in the north and the south, after years
of moderate prosperity was compelled
to support herself and her family. She
had been a pretty woman, and one
readily could see where her daughters
got their personal attractiveness.
Not many doors from the boisterous
little eating house in which the rail-
road men snatched their meals as they
went through, the widow opened a
book and news stand. Her home was
on the floor above the stand, and it
was there she brought her little girls
! to womanhood. Good looking, harum
iscarum Dave Gable saw Frances Cole
man one evening as he dropped in to
purchase newspaper. 1t was at the
end of June, in 1876. and the country
was in the throes of excitement over
J the first news of the Custer massacre
, ON the Little Big Horn river.
Cable was deeply interested, for he
) had seen Custer fighting at the front
In the sixties. Frances Coleman, the
} lprettiest girl he had ever seen, sold
) him the. newspaper. After that, he
seldom went through Albany without
, visiting the little book shop.
, Tempestuous, even arrogant in love,
Cable once convinced that he cared for
her, lost no time In claiming her,
whether or no. In less than three
. months after the Custer massacre they
were married.
Defeated rivals unanimously and en-
viously observed that the handsomest
fireman on the road had conquered the
most outrageous little coquette be-
tween New York and Buffalo. AS a
matter of fact, she had loved him
from the start; the others served as
thorns with which she delightedly
pricked his heart into subsection.
The young husband settled down, re
nounced all of his undesirable habits
and became new man with such sur
Uprising suddenriess that his friends
marveled and-derided. a year o.