The Norfolk weekly news-journal. (Norfolk, Neb.) 1900-19??, 1909-02-05

recent Trip county land rush, from
the pen Of Lindsay Deuison, concern
ing whom The News spoke last Satur.
day, is printed in the February num-
Der OF the American Magazine. BE.
cause OF local co,or" the story will be
of unusual interest In Norfolk and
throughout the northwest Numerous
photographs are used In part the
writer says:
They broke down the gates Of the
Omaha railroad station, Sunday after
noon, those hOmo-seokers. They broke
down the gates for the chance of rid.
ing siXty-tive or seventy-iivo to car
there are just sixty seats in a day
coach--wide awake and talking corn,
politics and religion for sixteen hours
through the night to raw little town
out on the prairie, there to make oath
to their signatures before a notary and
wide awake, talking corn, politics
and religion, munching tough sand
witches and drinking beer out of bot
tles-go jostling each other like steers
In a cattle car, sixteen hours back to
Omaha.
l meandered into it on Monday. 1t
wasn't so bad then. The railroad peo-
pie had begun to feel cheerfully rem
iniscent about it. But the patched-up
gates were there: the crowd was there
which was like nothing except the
crowd in the New London station after
Yale-Harvard race; S. +. Miller, who
has a railroad title yard long in
which traffic agent" are the most i'm
portant words, was there, with ten
or twelve subordinate agents working
like redcap ushers in more peaceful
places and times: examining tickets,
announcing trains, helping boost
bundles aboard, assigning conductors
and brakemen, holding the baby for
minute, unlocking car doors and ex-
planning that everybody would have to
change cars at Norfolk Junction.
Braden and Reynolds at Work.
The journey through the night was
broadening experience. The really
educational part of it didn't begin until
Norfolk Junction. There were parlor
cars as far as that. To be sure there
was a meat drummer from South
Omaha who had not that regard for the
dignity of the office Of president of the
United States which one had learned
to look forward to as a pleasant GER
tainty west of the Missouri; and there
was a fat farmer who disturbed ones
he
sertion that Roosevelt didn't make the
corn grow. But at Norfolk, there was
S. NJ. Braden, who bosses as much
Northwestern railroad as there is west
of the Missouri land that's no forty
step path from the back porch to the
WELD, and C. H. Reynolds, who runs
the details of things between Omaha
and Pine Hill. They were both run
ming details that Monday night. Gee!
Wish you'd been with us here yester-
day" they would say, then you'd have
seen something. Things are easy to-
night" They amplified by explaining
that Braden was going to get into
real actual bed at 4 o'clock in the
morning and sleep until 6 o'clock and
that Reynolds was going to get into
the same bed when Braden got out OF
1t and sleep until s O'clock, 1t was
fun to sit on a table near the stove
in the dispatcher's office and hear the
two of them and the dispatcher DO
things-first Reynolds and then Bra
den reaching out in impatience and
taking the telegraph ticker thing away
from the dispatcher and sending or
ders by their own hands.
Here" one of them would say, chow
many did Jones and Ellsworth say they
had on Second 107? Six hundred and
fifty? Two hundred for Dallas?
Where's Pete? Pete! Say, Pete, put
out call for Elmer and the rest of
that crew that got in here on Third s
and get up Fourth 107 to leave here
on the arrival of Second 107 about 2
O'Clock. They'll want seven cars and
a baggage, Now jump"
The shack shook, there was blind
ing headlight glare in our eyes and a
train rumbled past the windows and
stopped. Mr. Reynolds, what is
that?" "Pll find out, Mr.. Braden.'
Here's George! Never matter. What's
that just come in, George? Fourth 10?
Where's Third 1872" "They say they
passed her at Meadow Grove, Sir;
power busted" The deuce you say!
George, break your neck getting up to
Campbell's boarding house and tell
him to find fireman and take that
switch engine from over near the
woodpile and go up there and help
'em out, Steve! Where's Steve? Steve,
| thought | asked you to get me a
sandwich and pail of coffee?
So 1t went for three hours, until
Fourth 1O7 pulled out ahead of First,
Second and Third 1O7s for Dallas
Moreover, it had been going so for a
week and was to continue for week
to come. Ten times the traffic that
the road was built to carry-going on