Evening star., 1914-11-15

that such were my sensations that night:
and every time the train came to a sudden
stop in its plunging through the night had
a not too comfortable sense that when the
steel front of the car behind finally came to
meet the iron end of the car ahead, through
the unresisting mass of splinters and Empire
wreaths between, l would personally, in all
likelihood, more closely resemble a cubist
painting of a sunset on the Barbarv Coast
than a human being. | imagine that what
really carried me uninjured through the
nervous ordeal of that night was the amused
view | took of good old Georges notions
as to what. constituted absolute safety.
THE other incident, as narrated to me by
a fellow traveller, has given me much
comfort in eXasperating moments. In sec
tions of the South and West the engineers
| have not as yet mastered the art of stopping
or starting their trains gently. When they
stop they stop grindingly, with jolts and jars
sudden and violent enough to send snoring
| traveller full of stored up impetus head first
| through a stone wall; or, if it be in the day
time, with jerk of such nature as would
snap his head off completely if the latter
were not so firmly fastened to his neck. 1t
is method that may do very well for freight,
but for passengers and dynamite it has its
disadvantages.
| 1t was on a line renowned for its Jarrlng
methods that the incident of which my
| friend told me is alleged to have occurred.
A train made up of day coaches and Pull
man sleepers broke through wooden trestle
and landed in a frightful mass of twisted
wreckage on the bottom of a ravine some
eighty feet below. The wrecking crew
worked nobly, and after several hours OF he
roic effort came to a crushed and sphntered
| sleeper at the base of the ruin. There amid
the debris, sleeping peacefully, with beam
across his chest. lay the porter, wholly un-
hurt, and dreaming. He was even snoring.
The foreman of the wrecking crew, with
suitable language expressing his amazement
at the miracle, finally succeeded in getting
Sambo half awake.
"Wh-whut's de mattah?' stammered
Sambo, sitting up, and gazing dazedly at the
ruin on every side.
~AIatter:o~ echoed the foreman. why,
Jumping Jehoshaphat, Man. Don't You
know that this whole dod-gasted train has
fallen through the trestle? It's wonder
YOU weren't killed. Didn't you feel any
thing"
why, yas, Boss" said sanbo. Il did
feel sumpn' kind o Jolly; but fought dey.
was les a putin on de dinah at Jackson.
So it is that nowadays when these Joltlng,
iarring notes come along to vex my soul no
longer lose my temper as | used to do, but
think rather of that old darkv and de dlnah
at Jackson, and wax mellow, feeling that
that story alone, true or not, Is full justin
cation of all the sutferngs | or Others have
had to endure at the ungentle hands OF the
freight engineer at the passenger throttle.
THESE men on the engines are great char
I acters, and whenever | can get into
touch with them l do SO. In some Of my
zigzagging trips hither and yon in the Mid
die and North West l often find myself back
today on some train or other that has car
ried me along on some previous trip, and 1t
is frequently much like family reunion
when l meet the crew for third or fourth
| time Glad to see YOU back, is familiar
greeting from conductors, engineers, flag
men, and porters alike. There is one diner
on Western run that have visited so fire.
quentlv that | receive all the kindly special
attention one used to look for at an inn to
which he was a constant visitor; and think
it all grew out of the fact that the first time |
travelled on that particular car | summoned
the man in charge to complain of the pie.
Il don't like to complain, said L. "but
this pic
"What's the matter with the pie?7 he
asked, bristling a little.
1 4 i .J