Los Angeles herald., 1908-02-05
WAGON
DISAPPEARS FROM
BROADWAY CURB
Three and a Half Wheeled Vehicle
Simply Fades Out of Sight
After PuZZling
Many

Broadway in Los Angeles lately fur
nished a mystery which would have
brought Sherlock Holmes of the great
head into a pensive mood. and caused
the noted sleuth to do some tall, digni-
fed thinking. And the mystery has
not yet been solved.
This beautiful street, which is known
along the entire coast for its artistic
lighting by night and handsome appear
ance by day, wore. in one section at
least, the appearance of Main street
in Back to Grigsby's Station" For
near the corner of Second and Broad
way last Sunday morning, as the rising
sun performed his usual imitation OF a
municipal lighting plant, was to be
seen a dilapidated three and one-half
wheeled vehicle, tottering towards the
grave-or rather, stalled on the verge
of the tomb.
This was a one-horse light built
wagon (such as is used by the young
Jehu of a butcher boy), with black
body and "yaller'' wheels. How it came
there no one knew. Three or four
morning papers were lying in the bot
tom, adding another gloomy note to the
sad spectacle.
No one knew it's history. There was
no driver No horse was hitched to it.
No telltale broken bottle or even fleet
ing scent of gasoline had remained to
give a "tip" to the anxious investi-
gator. All day Sunday 1t stood there.
The officer on the beat, No. 1854, said he
didn't know how 1t came. Saturday 1t
lad not been there, he said; but when
he came on Sunday noon the chariot
reposed near the sidewalk in the quiet
and seclusion of the gutter. The
boulevardiers OF Broadway, who stroll
past the handsomely furnished windows
of the department stores, so brilliantly
lit up at night, looked wonderingly at
the vehicle of the three and half
wheels.
A chap who hadn't been able to go out
to Santa Anita CHANGED bet with an
ether man as to how the wheel had
been broken. 1t was badly fractured,
while most of the spokes were sprained.
The sickly lurch given by the broken
wheel, which rested that particular hub
on the glistening jewels of the gutter
cobbles, let the public look all the more
closely into the body of the vehicle.
Everybody guessed-no one knew.
More Mystery
Then came Sunday nights rain. And
the dreary vehicle seemed to be weep
ing to itself as 1t shed the rain off its
i'll painted back and dished wheels The
police didn't know anything more about
it. They realized with the public that
this was no addition to the "city beau
tiful," AS doomed in the papers. They
wanted to wait until the man came
who owned the thing and when he'd
try to lift" it they'd "pnich" him. But
he did not desire to be "pinched," evil
GENTLY. Monday repeated the same
story. People became greatly inter-
ested. Now and then a busting auto
mobile with women DESTROYS of shop
ping would be steered within horse
shoes widtl- of this shattered relic of
travel. The water wagon hurled minia-
ture bouquets of dew drops upon It.
The street cleaning machine smoked by
in disdain. Some pedestrians even
swiped'' the two days old papers from
the body of the thing, leaving 1t bare
and naked to the public gaze.
II don't know how it came to be
there" remarked the floor walker on
the first aisle of the big department
store in front of which the wreck re-
POSED. I'VE never saw it until Mon
day morning when we came to work.
1t looks like country town. They
should remove the thing
Then Tuesday morning. Once more
the sun came out and lit up the town
as though there never had been any
rainy SPELL" But the glistening orb
missed it's old, faithful comrade who
had waited for him through the unkind
| rain of Sunday night and all day