The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-01-19
JANE CABLE
Continued from page s.)

At the close or tue clEII .ir I'rlvdte 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. It was then philo sophically be realized that labor alone
 could win for him. and he stuck to ii
 with rigid integrity. In turn he be
 came brakeman and fireman. Finally
 his determination and faithfulness won him fireman's place on one of the
 fast New York Central ''runs." If ever
 he was dissatisfied with the work, nc
 one was the wiser.
 Railroading in those days was not
 what 1t 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 Cable 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 hun. 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 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 1t was there she brought her little girls to womanhood. Good looking, harum scarum Dave Cable saw Frances Cole man one evening as he dropped in to purchase a newspaper. It was at the end of June, in 1876. and the country was in the throes of excitement over 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 prettiest 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 matter of fact, she had loved him from the start: the others served as thorns with which she delightedly pricked his heart into subjection.
 The young husband settled down. re- nounced all of his undesirable habits and became a new man with such sur prising suddenness that his friends marveled and-derided. A year ot happiness followed. He grew accus- toned to her frivolous ways, over looked her merry whimsicalities and gave her the full length of free rope" as he called it. He was con- tented and consequently careless. She chafed under the indifference and in her believed the worst of him. Turmoil succeeded peace and content ment. and in the end David Gable. driven to distraction. weakly aban- doned the domestic battlefield and fed to the far west giving up home. goo wages and all for the sake of freedom, such as it was. He ignored her letters and entreaties. but in all those months that he was away from her he never ceased to regret the impulse that had defeated him. Nevertheless he could not make up his mind to go back and resume the life of torture her jealousy had begotten.
 Then the unexpected happened. A letter was received containing the com- mand to come home and care for his wife and baby. At once David Cable called a halt in his demoralizing ca reer and saw the situation plainly. He forgot that she had ragged" him to the point where endurance rebelled; he forgot everything but the fact that he cared for her in spite of all. Sobered and conscience stricken. he knew only that she was alone and telling; that she had suffered uncomplainingly until the babe was some months old before ap- pealing to him for help. In abject hu- initiation he hastened back to New York. representing himself every mile of the way. Had he but known the true situation he would have been spared the bangs of remorse and this narrative never would have been writ ten.