The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-02-19
REAL HEART THROBS
FAILED TO loot
TrainmaSter's Sad Tale of an
Unhappy Christmas.
Aged Couple Killed by Sons
Engine at Crossing.
WORD PICTURE IS DRAWN
By III. II. Lake of the Santa Fe
Eastern Division
In Effort to Drive Home Les
son of Safety First.

H. r. Lake. trainmaster of the Santa
Fe's eastern division, has developed
into a spellbinder of more than local
renown. His activities at meetings
having to do with good service to the
public and the safety of employees
have put him to the fore as a student
and expounder of those subjects. In
recent good service conference at
Emporia, in which eastern division
operating employees participated, Mr..
Lake said to his hearers:
Il want you to drift with me for a
moment into the world of imagery, and
as we drift. visualize, so to speak, a
moving picture upon the screen of
everyday life. Picture before your
eyes lad of eighteen living on a farm
near Usage City; he tires of the farm
life and leaves the old homestead for
the railroad. He applies for, and gets
a job wiping engines at Usage City. He
likes the work, Notwithstanding the
fact it is dirty and mental because he
knows it is the stepping stone to his
hearts desires, that is, locomotive en-
gineer.
through the various steps of engine
wiper, roundhouse man, fireman and
finally engineer; how happy and proud
he is of this last promotion. While
living at Usage City he went home
every Sunday to see pa and ma, but
now he is married, living at Argentine,
and cannot get home so often, but al
ways manages to be home about
Christmast time.
Their Trip to Town.
Let us now imagine it is Christmas
eve and he has permission to lay off
Christmas day. He is running passen-
ger, pulling No. on this day and in
tends deadheading back to Usage City
that night. It's bad snowy day,
regular blizzard. but Christmas
I
running fast. Pa and ma are going to
have a big fine turkey for Christmas
] dinner and all that goes with it. They
start out on an early trip to Usage
City to get some cranberries, celery
! oysters, and nuts for the dinner, and
some other little knicknacks for Johns
! little boy. They hitch up old Mag, the
| old mare who has been in the family
| for some twenty odd years, close up
tight the blinds of the old rattletrap
! buggy that makes as much noise as a
! threshing machine, pull their caps and
| hoods down over their ears, mufflers
around their neckS, tuck in their feet
with the laprobe, and they are off.
1T is several miles to town but they
! get there in due time and make their
purchases and start back; it has grown
colder so in starting back they bundle
| themselves up tighter than ever. Head
| ed home old Mag needs but little per-
| suading and trots along at a pretty
!
sight of the railroad crossing and for
some distance up and down the road
| Pa can see that the coast is clear; it is
then he gives old Mag a crack with his
stub whip. feeling sure that he will
make it across the railroad crossin g
before a train comes by.
Fails to See Train.
las they approach the railroad
| crossing they speak of John and how
| proud they are of their boy who is
now pulling one of the fastest trains
on the Santa Fe The country road
approaches the crossing somewhat at
an angle, and from behind a thick
| hedge fence; as they get closer to the
crossing and come out from behind
the hedge fence, Pa gives old Mag
another crack with his stub whip,
with his familiar 'Gid-ap,' instead of