Year: 1877

a RACE 1GAiNST TIME.


Dreams are not always true. Nor, on
the other hand, are they always false-a
fact within the observation, If not expe-
rience, of everybody. OF course L do
not refer to daydreams, nor the fancies
coniured up by disordered stomach.


Let me transcribe page or two of my
own experience, and judge for yourself
whether shadows of the impending
future can be projected in dreams. 1
had been stationed ON the main line of
the great Central railway for something
| more than year, attending to all the
day and night duties at that point with
such unfailing regularity that no thought
of possible accident had ever occurred
to me.


The duties were not especially ardu-
Gus, but the responsibility was far
greater. There was an express, day and
night, both ways, for which the main
line had to be always clear local ex-
press each way, which ran on the turn
out and waited for the through train to
pass mail train night and morning,
which had right Of way =; one ordinary
passenger, and half-a-dozen, perhaps,
accommodation and freight.


To see that the main line was always
closed at the proper moment, that the
turnout was always ready when it should
be, that the branch where the local
made up was open-in short, that every
thing was in condition for prompt and
satisfactory working me almost
constantly at my post, though, as I have
already SAID, the duties were not
especially arduous.


In order to be handy to my business,
I lived in cottage close by, from the
open door of which, looking eastward, I
could see any coming train for mile
away, and notice whether the signals for
"danger" or s' safety" were in their
proper positions.


One morning, just after the local had
made up and gone, my wife came run
ing to me with an alarmed face


Our little girl was missing. She had
seen her only few minutes before the
departure of the train, and had made a
hasty search for her as soon as she dis
covered her absence. She feared she
knew not what.


[ calmed her with few brief words,
and, hurrying around to the station build
ing, began a careful examination of every
possible place where [ deemed it likely
the child might be. (She was only
years old.) The search resulted in my
finding her fast asleep on the sunny side
of pile of railroad ties, with her doll,
half as large as herself, lying beside her


That night had a singular dream.


thought I was in the middle of vast
plain, through which stretched, broad
and clear before me, the double track of
a main line. Like ours, yet unlike, for
every few rods could see open switches
and blood-red signals, that gave me an
agony of apprehension. As [ looked
again at the line, my eyes fell upon an
object-a small form lying upon one of
the rails. My child With mighty cf-
fort 1 awoke, turned over, and went to
sleep, and dreamed the same thing
again, with the addition that [ seemed
mounted ON winged horse, and riding
for life to close the switches.


Again [ awoke, bathed in perspiration,
and aroused myself sufficiently to get
up an1 visit my little darling's crib, OF
course to find her safe 1 walked the
floor in my stocking-feet for while;
looked at the clock, and again turned in;
to dream for the third time the same
thing; to start suddenly and broadly
awake, as If the voice which reused the
Thane of Cawdor had Kissed in nv ear.
as in his, ".SIeep no more!''


To awake and find the first gleam of
the incoming day glowing grayly on the
eastern wall


However. a visit to all those switches
mime, and not those of the dream-a
dash head-foremosti into cool deep, run
ming stream near, and a warm breakfast
seemed to clear away whatever remained
of the lingering effects of my nocturnal
vision, and I felt like myself once more


Between the passage of the down mail,
which stopped, and the through express
which did not, there was an interval of
an hour an6 a half that was essentially
my own. But that morning dispatch
had come for one of the directors who
lived three miles to the south OF us, and,
as it so happened, the agent, who was
busy, requested me to take it, offering
me the use of his fast mare, which stood
in harness under the shed-an animal
remarkable for its speed and endurance,
as l ascertained thereafter.


I had been to the directors house on
one or two similar occasions, and neither
the agent nor myself deemed the time
necessary to so and come any considera-
tion when an hour and half was at my
:. L 4 Il.