The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1912-11-05

mean a true one, l shall give you a
brief account of a vacation-at-work
that | greatly enjoyed some quarter OF
a century ago. You will pardon the
photographic form, which / choose
for it's superior d%irectness.
Through some myoplc and pig-O-
cephalous misunderstanding of each
others interests, Natchitoches and
the Texas & Pacific railroad failed to
get together when that line "a laid
in 1882. The city fathers wouldn't
raise a bonus, and the road builders
wouldn't come on to town, anyway
as the fathers had supposed they
would have to; the engineers found
that by a slight twist to ~starboard
they could leave the town some
twelve miles to port-which they did.
So, in order to get the blessings OF a
railroad civilization" our folks NOV
ed to Provencal, a thriving agricultu-
raj, commercial manufacturing and
railroad center-having a sawmill,
store land postofice. besides the sta
ton, water tank, and section house.
Provencal was in some respects a
metropolis and excited the wonder
and admiration of theinhabitants for
many miles around. A 19-year-old
barefoot boy walked there from Lees.
vile, forty-two miles, and upon hear
ing the ticking of the telegraph instru-
ments in the station exclaimed in
wide eyed nasal = toned wonder:
We'll done, sir!' "a Provencal pro-
vincialism not intended to express
approval as the words suggest, but
rather amazement-in fact. it is an
exact equivalent of by Hokey!" or
well I'll be consarned!"); and then
added (Leesville paper please copy:
"They's mo GURUS things about a
ta-own then er little!' To admit the
truth, l heartily agreed with him;
for although stepped in the urban Gull
ture of Natchitoches, and sharing in
the pride of its hoary antiquity. !
was nevertheless profoundly Impress
ed by he choo-choo of locomotives,
the "fickerty-fack' Of the hand-car.
the lost-time-pick-it-up" of the freight
engines, and the "catch-a-nigger" Of
the passenger engines-as onomatopo-
e~tically interpreted, for me by Uncle
George, the negro man-servant In
the new environment.
But most Of all was l impressed
by the same thing that struck the
Leesvillian, the telegraph instru-
ments and their wonderful transmits
sion Of messages It is true that for
some years there had been a telegraph
line in Natchitoches, all the way from
Coushatta. and that our citizens had
been able to get dispatches" when
ever anybody vas dead. or such
things, but the volume of business
was 80 small that few people realized
the existence Of this mode Of commu-
nication. At any rate, l did not-un-
til / went to P%rovencal. John Tri-
chel, a Natchitoches boy. was the op-
orator and railroad agent, and quick
ly became-and has always remained
-one of my most admired and valued
friends. (He Is now one of the
chiefs of a bank in Shreveport, and
ny coincidence another chief in that
bank is Mr.. L. M. Howard, of Cou-
shatta, another. good friend, who was
in those days the operator that a
the telegraph line referred to above.
John Trichel taught me how to tele-
graph. and Mr.. Howard practiced
with me from Coushatta W his
line, which then ran to Provencal.
And thus it gradually came about
that in the summer of 1888 l was ex-
allied to the position Of night tele-
graph operator at that station, and
had the preliminary experience which
led up to the vacation-at-work which
is the subject of this story.
1t was the following spring, after
from school at Keachie Col
lege famous latterly as the institU.
ton in which Amos Ponder and Tom
Barrett learned Latin). where l had
fallen i'll and needed a change, that l
conceivd the plan Of q vacation at
in Iowa. The vicissitudes
Of railroad politics had suddenly |
changed Superintendent j. H. Red
mOnds' address from Marshall, Texas,
to Marshalltown. Iowa, and his juris-
from the Texas & Pacific to
the Iowa Central. He employed me
and sent me q pass from st. Louis to
Marshalltown. l went to Texarkana
by courtesy of my former Chief Dis
and thence to Little Rock N
freight caboOse-a brakeman by
brevet and SO on to st. Louis. On
the Wabash Western l had my first
in a Pullman car, having
Ill the difficulties later described by
Mr.. Dooley' and others in the litera-
.ure Of that subject. The next morn
ng I looked out on a fiat prairie coun-
,ry. The air was cold, dry and invig-
The engine squalled a new
way, to my ears. The idea of hustle,
he sight of big barns and grain ele-
'ense of cut-west-ness r associated