Bellefonte, Pa., June 27, 1902
A —
THE SUMMER RAIN.
Sweet, blessed summer rain—ah me?
The drifting cloud-land spills
God’s mercy on the dotted lea,
And on the tented hills.
Yet is there more than shrouded sky.
And more than falling rain.
Or swift-borne souls of flowers that fly
Breeze lifted from the plain,
Strange joy comes with the freshening gust,
The whitening of the leaves,
The smell of sprinkled summer dust,
The dripping of the eaves.
The soul stirs with the melting clod,
The drenched fields’ silent mirth ;
Who does not feel his heart help God
To bless the thirsting earth ?
Oh, rain! Oh, blessed summer rain !
Not on the fields alone,
Nor woodlands fall, nor flow'rd plain,
But on the heart of stone !
—Robert Burns Wilson.
THE AGENT AT MISSOURI
TION.
STA-
Jamie Halloran, when a young chap,
was different from the rest of the young
chaps at Read’s Landing. He had little
fondness for swinging on to the rear plat-
forms of the outgoing passenger trains, after
the manner of the agile conductors. He
cared nothing for helping the jolly brake-
men of the way-freights to twist brakes and
make couplings. Even the pastime of set-
ting out at sundown the lighted switch-
lamps for the agent attracted him not a
whit.
Read’s Landing nestles a closely knit
village by the Mississippi River. on the
line of the C & N Railway. Jamie Hallo-
ran, an orphan almost from the start, had
lived there always. He worked in the gen-
eral store of his uncle for his board, his
clothes and a touch of schooling.
He was, in those days. a strange little
mixture of Scotch-Irish, a tremendous
thinker, with an ambition like Napoleon's.
Nights, after the store had closed its doors,
he was forever poring over railroad maps
and guide-books, striving to study out why
certain lines were laid between certain
points, puzzling over the merits of compet-
itors, packing his greedy head with routes
and distances and time-tables. He was
continually scanning the transportation
columns of the Chicago and St Paul dailies
to which his uncle subscribed; pondering
with gravest concern over the news of
strikes and rate wars and alliances. It was
not the dash and strain of railroading that
interested Jamie Halloran. but—though he
himself, scarcely understood it, the forces
behind, the forces of commerce and migra-
tion that make possible the great indus-
try.
Larly in his nineteenth year Jamie had
a beart-to-heart consultation with Terry
Blake, the C & N’s agent at the Landing, a
little weazened old fellow who had ruled
that depot since the first train thrilled and
shook the silent shores of the Upper Mis- |
sissippi.
Terry saw very quickly how things were
with his visitor. *‘You’ll have to begin at
the foot,”’ said he with a grin, “and ‘twill
likely take some time to rise to a Presiden
cy. But come into the depot with me, if
you want. I'll have pleasure in teaching
you the very great deal that I know about
the foot of the ladder.”
So into Terry Blake's depot Jamie went,
Straightway his uncle turned him out, be-
cause, so he said, he conldn’t afford to house
the boy now that he bad no time for the
store. But Jamie got around that. He
treated the few clothes he owned with down
right reverence wearing his coats and vests
only on Sundays. He earned his meals for
caring for the village doctor’s horses. He
slept in the baggage-room of the depot on a
wattress billed to the Landing years before
and never called for,though the baggage-
room was not always comfortable. It was
noisy with the scratching of rats, and chil-
ly of windy nights, and the limited pas-
sengers and fast freights that passed with a
crash and roar that was come and gone all
in a minute, at a pace that rocked the old
depot to its foundation, were enough to
worry the soundest sleeper living.
All of every day,sometimes well into the
night, Jamie drummed out Morse talk—at
first on a dummy key, later on the live ones
—and slowly learned to unravel sense from
the dizzy blur of dots and dashes that spun
through the clattering instruments, And,
little by little, Terry Blake tanght him of
the sacred Rules of signals and train orders
of forms and reports, of tickets and way-
bills—taught him all the ins und outs of an
agent’s drudgery. :
At the end of twelve months Jamie was
able to handle such operators as Lane of
Dubuque, Halsey of La Crosse, Perry of
Hastings—three of the speediest senders in
the country. He knew how to run a depot
from daylight till dark, and from dark to
daylight again. ,
Then two years dragged by with never a
hint of salary or promotion; for all Jamie's
ambition the time of private cars and pri-
vate offices seemed afar off.
But one May day there happened a fuss
over wages-on the western divisions; a lot
of the depot men out there quit. The Gen
eral Superintendent at Chicago issued a
circular to agents inquiring for promising
‘‘students’’ competent to take positions as
operators. Examination blanks to be fill-
ed in by applicants were forwarded.. Or-
dinarily ou the C & N *‘students’’ are call-
ed to division headquarters for examination
But this was a dire emergency ; there wasn’t
time for any red tape.
Janiie naturally filled in a blank in his
most flowing hand and Terry Blake penned
a strong endorsement across one gorner, Af
ter a week of waiting a long envelope same
‘back from the General Superintendent for
Mr. J. Halloran. The letter inside stated
that J. Halloran had been appointed—not
operator—but AGENT at Missouri Station,
South Dakota, at a salary of forty-five dol-
lars per month. Transportation thereto
was enclosed.
J. Halloran and old Terry hunted the
big wall map for Missouri “Station, and
found it easily; on the east bank of the
Missouri River, the terminus of the Dako-
ta Division; its name printed in type quite
as large as that allowed for Chicago and
Milwaukee. Terry had in the depot only
local time tables which did not cover the
western part of the system, so they were
unable to get any particulars as to popula-
tion and train service, but, even though
the salary of starting was modest, it seem-
ed most probable that Missouri Station was
a post worth having, located as it was at
the end of an important division, on a nav-
igable river well known as their own Mis-
sissippi. i
Gleeful over his good fortune Jamie
squeezed old Terry's wrinkled hand many |
times that day, and left at four next morn-
ing on the early north-bound ‘passenger for
St. Panl, where he was to take the train
for his new home.
He reached St. Paul at breakfast time,
and changed to the coaches of the Dakota
Division passenger, and very dingy coaches
they were, by the way. In the Union de-
pot he had had time to secure a general
time table, and as his train pulled out he
commenced astudy of the pages devoted to
the Dakota Division. He discovered short
ly that the train upon which he was as well
as its mate, the evening passenger, ran only
so far as Bowdle, South Dakota, a poins
nearly fifty miles east of the division ter-
minus, Missouri Station. Between Bow-
dle and Missouri Station a train, dubbed
by the time-table the Missouri Accommo-
dation, ran occasionally—Mondays, Wed-
nesdays and Fridays,to be exact. In spite
of himeelf, Jamie could not keep from wor
rying a bit. Read’s Landing saw twelve
trains each way every day—what sort of a
station could it be that saw but three a
week ?
The trip west was a long one. All morn-
ing the passenger dozed across Minnesota;
all afternoon and all evening it plodded in-
to South Dakota, through a prairie country
that was always the same—fruitfal of
wondrous crops, yet tedious to look upon—
flat, scantily wooded, seemingly boundless,
the farms of immense acreage, the stations
scrawny and far apart.
o’clock did the train reach Bowdle and Ja-
mie seek a hotel.
The day following, being a Thursday,
was a time of rest for the Missouri Accom-
modation ; Jamie was forced to stay fretting
about Bowdle. After luncheon, however,
be walked over behind the roundhouse, at
the west end of the yards, and inspected
the track that led on to Missouri Station—
the ‘‘extension’’ the townspeople called it.
Through a growth of tall, rank weeds that
mantled the whole right of way, and lean-
ed in the breeze as languid as a field of
grain, he caught glimpses of frayed ties,and
rusted iron rails that had, of a surety,done
duty elsewhere in the days when steel was
unheard of. Jamie smiled ruefully; he was
beginning to understand why the Missouri
Station appointment had come to him so
easily.
Friday morning at eight the Missouri
Accommodation departed with Jamie the
sole passenger. It was not much of a train.
There were no freight cars, no coaches; only
a little wheezy engine, with a stack that
flared wide at the top and a smoked-up ca-
boose that had once been red. It swayed
and rolled over the bad roadbed in a way
to make a man seasick, and pounded the
uneven rails with a din to deafen,although
the time-table allowed four hours for the
fifty mile run.
And a scant mile beyond Bowdle the
land roundabout, as if to follow the fashion
set by its railroad, suddenly turned rough,
rocky and absolutely barren. Jamie did
not know that this neighborhood was scof-
fingly spoken of throughout the general of-
fices of the C & N as the Little Bad Lands
but he felt, nevertheless, that he was ready
for the worst.
He was mistaken, however. At noon the
Accommodation made its first stop. From
the caboose Jamie could see neither habi-
tation nor living thing. But the train
showed no symptom of starting on; he
clamered out for a look around.
A little distance ahead of the engine the
track ended in a shabby wooden turntable,
from which a single short siding ran back
parallel to the main line. A hundred miles
west of the turntable the prairie ceased ab-
ruptly as though it had been lopped away
by a mighty ax, and heyond, flowing from
north to south between low banks, stretch-
ed a monster river, slow-moving, mud-lad-
en, vast, almost a mile wide. On its near
shore, to the south of the railroad were a
small cottage and a barn, landmarks evi-
dently, and beside them, propped upon the
bank, was another relic of days gone by, a
steam ferryboat, named the ‘*A. Lincoln,”’
fully equipped, but dingy with disuse. Be-
fore the house a horse-power ferry, but lit-
tle bigger than a rowboat and bereft of its
horse, lolled in the river. On the other
side of the train, alongside of the railroad,
was an ugly looking shanty, carelessly built
it3 roof just high enough to clear a man’s
bead, painted with a flaming coat of caboose
red. Aside from its location, the shanty
bore no earmarks of a depot, but the tele-
graph wires dipped beneath ite eaves and a
baggage truck leaned against its front.
Then, at last, it dawned on Jamie Hal-
loran. This dreary, deserted flood before
him wae the Missouri river, that he had
seen 80 often pictured in his school geog-
raphies as thickly populated with water
craft of all sorts. This place of solitude
and blackness and desolation was Missouri
Station, the terminus of the Dakota Divis-
ion.
Some men would have set down and
wept, some would have sworn themselves
black in the face, butJamie merely got out
his grip and walked down to the depot to
take possession. The out going agent, a
pale, sickly fellow—Christianson was his
name—surrendered the station with a
lamely put hope that Jamie might ‘like it
here’’ then bolted for the caboose without
losing a moment.
Reversing its engine the Accommodation
after a half hour’s lay-over, started on its
return trip. Jamie watched it shrink to a
black dot on the prairie and disappear over
a far-off ridge. For a while a wisp of smoke
hung over the ridge, then it faded, and the
new made agent sat alone in his depot hy
the melancholy Missouri.
He gave several minutes to himself by
asking himself why a railroad had been
built to Missouri Station, then turned his
thoughts to his depot. - It was a shell;
through the wide cracks between its tim-
bers the summer wind brushed sorrowfal-
ly. There was but one room—the office—
holding a table for the instruments, a chai I,
a cof, an oil stove, a cup-hoard, for station-
ery, and another for the tinned foodstuffs,
upon which it was designed the agent should
subsist, A few of these foodstuffs Chris-
tianson had kindly left on the shelves to
carry his successor along until he could ar-
range for a fresh supply.
Jamie passed a fairly busy afternoon put-
ting, things to rights, and retired early
to his cot. = But the following morning
he could find no duties whatever about the
depot, ro, after pinning a card on the door
stating his whereabouts—an act that seem-
ed a wanton waste of ink—he set out to ex-
plore the cottage on the riverbank. To his
surprise he fouud it ocoupied ‘by an old
issouri river steamboat, captain John
Rollins. Rollins owned the ferryboat, ‘‘A
Lincoln,” that rested beside his cottage.
Years hack, before the C & N came, he had
navigated her at that point, and he had
made much money ferrying a great over land
travel hound west for the newly-discovered
Black Hills mines. Railroads entering the
Hills by the southern route had killed his
trade, but Rollins bad chosen to live on by
his river, carrying on his smaller ferry
those few who still wished e. He
was a fine, sociable old man, overflowing
with stirring yarns of the flush years on
the Big Muddy. ye :
He told Jamie, too, during the chat, the
true story of the Missouri extension. Back
in the seventies the Dakota Territorial leg-
Not until ten’
islature had agreed to grant the C. & N
Railroad Company great tracts of rich land
on condition that it build a line of railroad
across the Territory to the Missouri River.
This railroad the company had built; but
that part of the line beyond Bowdle, where
the fertile country ended, into the the re-
gion that some official had named the Lit-
tle Bad Lands, had been constructed only
to comply with the terms of the land-grant
not for operation or revenue. Thus the tri-
weekly train was moved to keep within, or
bluntly speaking, to evade, the laws of Da-
kota.
All through the month of May Jamie
grimly guarded Missouri Station; Mondays
Wednesdays and Fridays snatching a halt
hour’s gossip with George Reber and Flah-
erty, the engine crew of the Ac:ommodation,
and Pat Harris, the conductor; other days
visiting with Captain Rollins; eating his
canned meals stoically, save at such times
as he dined at the Captain’s cottage; mak-
ing out, in patience, his ticket reports,
which always read, ‘‘No sales,"’ his freight
reports which always read ‘*No shipments.
The first week he sent these dailies, aceord-
ing to the rules, but thereafter only week-
ly, the auditor, having notified him in a
sarcastic note, that reports of weekly fre-
quency would be satisfactory from that sta-
tion.
The while he lived in the hope that bus-
iness would pick up. But it did not. And
it was astate of things hard for Jamie to
bear; not having anybody to work on after
his long study of railroading. Troe he
planned to the last detail a pleasure tour
for the Captain; to New York via the Lakes
the Falls and Boston; returning via Wash-
ington and Chicago. He proposed, also,
that he sell the ‘‘Lincoln’s”’ machinery to
some Eastern foundry which would make
quite a goodly shipment from Missouri Sta-
tion. But the Captain would give ear to
neither plan. As for actual trafic—one
day a piece of gearing for the ferryhoat
came in by freight, another day a traveling
ing for the Indian reservation beyond the
river. That was all.
Many fellows would have prospered and
fattened in such a lazy life. Jamie wasn’t
that sort. He had gone into the railroad
world with the idea of rising.
‘Cap'n, he declared solemnly to Rollins
the morning of the first dag of June, ‘“‘the
business won't come to Missouri Station of
itself. I must go out and bring it in.”’
The Captain chuckled. He said be’d liv-
ed in that neighborhood going on half a
century, and didn’t know of a single atom
of business anywhere.
But Jamie was hard to convince. So
Rollins hitched the team of stout roans,
that he used betimes on the ferry, to a
buckboard, and drove Jamie south over the
Missouri river bottoms. They found,
as Rollins had predicted, a country
rock-bound in some places, swampy in
other, totally uninhabited and unproduc-
tive. Rollins said that class of laud con-
tinued south nearly to Pierre. After twen-
ty miles of it Jamie admitted he had seen
enough.
Next day was train day, but the morn-
ing after that Jamie and the Captain start-
ed on a second drive, this time steering
northward along the Missouri. The north
country developed much the same as had
the south—perhaps the more barren of the
two—for fifteen or eighteen miles. Then
it changed. Driving on to a plateaa well
above the river's sarface, Jamie and Rol-
lins saw spread before them, or the eastern
shore, a great level land whose goil-gleam-
ed black and moist, and everywhere was
green-tinted with a dense stubble that Ja-
mie knew for wheat. At long injervals
groups of farm buildings rose on the prai-
rie. One group lay within half a mile.
*“This is the kind of country I'm look-
ing for,’’ eried Jamie exultantly, “What's
the reason, Cap’n, my road can’t carry this
wheat crop East 2”?
“Nothing hard to answer there,” growl-
ed Rollins. “A farmer couldn’t haul a
load of wheat, or anything else, a mile
over that road we’ve just come over. This
section’s as much cut off from Missouri
Station as though a wall big as China’s was
built between.’? :
‘‘That’s 80,” admitted Jamie reluctantly,
hisenthusiasm dashed. “Then you mean
to say these farmers above here haul their
grain north to the O. P.’s track? Why,
that must be sixty or seventy miles from
these places we see.”’
“‘Eighty,”’ corrected the Captain.
‘Anyhow.’ said Jamie doggedly, after
a minute’s meditation, “I'd like to have a
talk with one of those wheat-shippers.’’
So Captain Rollins, nothing loth, drove
down into the valley to the farm house
nearest. Jamie found the owner at home,
introduced himself, and in balf an hour
learned a great deal about the local trans-
portation conditions. It was as the Captain
had said. All the wheat-growers along the
Missouri from that farm north, and for a
distance of forty miles back from the river,
were compelled, becanse of the impassable
roads south through the Little Bad Lands,
to team their grain across the boundary
through North Dakota to the O. P. raii-
road. And worse : the rates of haul to the
Minneapolis market levied by the O. P,
were mercilessly high—scarcely to be
borue; they had cut the profits of wheat-
raising to practically nothing. The farmer
talked earnestly and sensibly, not at all
like a man given to grumbling, and the
agent at Missouri Station was thinking
barder than ever before when he and the
Captain turned for their homeward trip.
For a full hour he said not a word. Then
he broke his peace with an odd query.
‘‘Cap’n,”” he asked, ‘‘ig the ‘A. Lincoln’
in shape to navigate ?’
“Why, yes,” answered Rollins, waking
out of a doze—**Why, yes, I guess so.”
‘Then,’ returned Jamie firmly, ‘the
wheat crop from that section of the Mis-
souri Valley we've just left will be shipped
this season by way of Missouri Station.’’
‘How do you make that?’ demanded
the Captain.
‘This way : Leaving out of the ques-
tion these bad south roads, those farmers
who are nearer to the C. & N. than they
are to the O. P. would naturally ship via
the C. & N., provided rates were equal.’’
“Yes, certainly.”’
‘But more than that. I'm not very well
up on grain tariffs, but I believe it’s as that
farmer claimed : the O. P. rate to Minne-
apolis is way high. If I remember right,
our Minneapolis rate is very much lower—
perhaps not more than half that of the O.
P. If that’s so we ought to command the
trade all the way up the valley to within a
dozen. miles of the O. P.’s track—we
wouldn’t want to work toc near, because if
the O. P. people tumbled to what we were
about they’d meet our rate and spoil our
business. Again leaving out of the ques-
tion these Bad Lands roads.”
*‘But you can’t leave them ont,” pro-
tested Rollins. . “A man couldn’t baul a
load of wheat a mile, I tell you——’
‘I know, I know,”’ interrupted Jamie
calmly. ‘‘But we’re not going to bother
with these roads at all. During harvest
I'll circulate my plan and figures among
the farmers interested. Then, when ship
ping season comes, we'll simply bring the
man and bis trunks passed through, head-’
wheat of the valley, starting a hit south of
Bismarck, down the Missouri river on
your ‘A. Lincoln’ to Missouri Station, for
shipment via the C. & N. to Minneapolis.
For your part of the deal—the steamboat
baul—we’ll add a little to the rail rate,
enough to make the thing well worth your
while.”
‘‘Can’s be dove,” snorted the Captain—
‘‘Can’t he done. The river’s in terrible
condition between my place and Bismarck
—choked by snags and sand; the
chanuel’s switched a mile from where
‘twas when Iran the stream. Besides, I
baven’t any crew for my boat—even if I
had, she couldn’t stow a hundred sacks of
wheat—and who'd load and unload it?"
“You could hire some barges somewhere
to increase your carrying capacity, couldn’t
you?" argued Jamie craftily, well remem-
bering how such matters were managed
back on the Mississippi. ‘‘Loading, un-
loading—let the shippers furnish men from
their farms to go with the grain,and handle
it at both ends of the steamer’s trip. That’s
only a fair proposition. The river—you’ve
got all summer to post yourself.’
“Yes, I know,”’ Rollins continued to oh-
ject,though more mildly now, “but I don’t
think it’s practicable. Still—still—I don’t
know, either. I guess there are some idle
barges up Bismarck way that I could rent
for little or nothing.’” He began to tug at
hig white beard, his kindly old face light-
ing with excitement. *‘And there’s Billy
Smith down at Pierre—used to be a crack
engine-man. And Tom Daly, clever a pilot
as ever gripped a spoke. Their licenses
must be good yet. They’d go in for the
fan of the thing, if for nothing more——"’
That was but the introduction—Captain
Rollins was converted. All through the
long drive home he and Jamie discussed
the plan, and afterward, at the depot, far
into the night. Jamie looked into his
tariffs, and found himself correct in his
stand concerning the C. & N.’s Minneapolis
grain rate : it was exactly half that charg-
ed by the O. P. from Bismarck. This, with
the addition of the small amount per ton
deemed fair by Captain Rollins for his
steamboat haul. allowed Jamie to fix upon
a rate most advantageous and attractive to
the wheat-shippers of the Missouri Valley.
Next day, however, to be certain of his
ground—his tariffs were not of latest issue
—he wired Burton, the General Freight
Agent at Chicago, for confirmation. Bur-
ton read the message impatiently, wonder-
ed what kind of an agent there was at Mis-
souri Station to be worrying over wheat
rates from the Little Bad Lands,and ignor-
ed the inquiry. Jamie wired again. A
chipper clerk of Burton’s answered that
the quotation named was still, and proba-
bly would continue, in effect, but further
advised Jamie that the time of the freight
department was thoroughly taken up, and
suggested that he hereafter limit his com-
mubications to matters of importance.
For an hour or two Jamie was red-hot,
but he goon got over it, and began to busy
himself with the conduct of the campaign.
From a real-estate office in Aberdeen he
borrowed a set of county maps, which
showed the Missouri River's course, the
names of the farmers adjacent, the location
and extent of their various holdings. These
maps be studied until he was as well ac-
quainted with the valley to the northward
as he had been with the village of Read’s
Landing. Conductor Pat Harris of the
Accommodation, seeing him so hard at
work, and not understanding, used to say
in pity, ‘‘Some day, young fellow, the com-
pany’ll give you a real station, and yon’ll
be swamped.”” But the little agent only
smiled good-naturedly and went on with
his maps,
Jamie advising at every turn, Captain
Rollins rounded up by letter his steam-
boat friends at Pierre and other towns. He
put the “A. Lincoln’ in prime condition,
and slid her into the river. He ordered a
carload of coal for her, which arrived in
due time over the extension—the first box
car Jamie bad seen since the beginning of
his term in office. A little later a pair of
steamboat inspectors ran out from St. Paul
and gave the old ferry a fresh license.
Then one morning in July the Captain
assembled a dozen of his cronies for a trial
trip. To “look at the river,” as posting
up on the channel is called among steam-
boatmen, successfully made the run with
the ‘‘Lincoln’’ up to Bismarck and return,
two hundred miles in all. While at Bis-
marck he leased ten barges, the rempant of
a once noted freight fleet.
July and August passed. Day by day
sun and wind and rain caressed the wheat
throughout the Dakotas and swiftly ripen-
ed it, until the one-time tiny shoots. of
green had changed at last to stately stalks
of gold.
On the first of September the farmers
started cutting. Then Jamie took the
Captain’s team, and drove, day after day,
and night after night, through the country
north of the Little Bad Lands, returning to
the depot only when the Accommodation’s
balf-hourly visits called him. He inter-
viewed every farmer along the east shore of
the Missouri from the Station almost to the
line of the O. P., explained his rate and
plan of shipment—by river to Missouri
Station, thence by the C. & N.—and asked
all to have their wheat, in sacks, and their
men for the handling, on the river-bank,
ready for the ‘‘A. Lincoln’’ by sunrise Sep-
tember 15th, a date when it was estimated
the harvesting would be finished. And at
‘every farm the owner listened carefully.
Many promised patronage on the spot, oth-
ers, wanted time to consider, but all seem-
ed greatly interested.
On the strength of his canvass Jamie
tember 13th, for 200 box cars for a wheat
shipment. Burton at that time was out on
the line on an inspection tour; his chief
clerk had temporary charge of things. Tne
chief clerk had never seen Missouri Station
Tin facs,could not recall ever having heard
its name before; but he decided directly
that a traffic that needed 200 cars at one
time should not’ be delayed. He passed
Jamie’s requisition and rushed it into the
Car Service Department. The Car Service
Agent, a new man from the South, badn’s
bad time to get well acquainted with the
road. He found that, by bard work, 200
cars could be squeezed out of the St. Paul
and Minneapolis yards, and ordered Harry
Kelly,Superintendent of the Dakota Divis-
ion, with office at St. Paul, to collect and
forward them to Missouri Station. Harry
Kelly knew all about Missouri Station,and
the order puzzled him, but it bore the in-
itials of the Car Service Agent and, still
further back, those of the General Freight
Agent. So he hastened to push the thing
through. He assembled the cars in less
than twelve hours, and then,as the engines
in his district were old and feeble, he hor-
rowed, of the River Division, four new
Brooks ten-wheel freighters to do the haul-
ing. The evening of the fourteenth he sent
the empties west in four sections of fifty
cars each, with orders to turn engines and
sidetrack at Bowdle; the sections to back
down the extension to Missouri Station one
at a time, at fast as called for.
On this: same day—the fourteenth—
Jamie and Captain Rollins and the crew of
veterans went with the ‘‘A. Lincoln’’ up to
wired General Freight Agent Burton, Sep-
‘this write
Bismarck, arriving shortly after dark.
There they worked all night taking on
coal, and binding fast to the steamer—five
on either side—the ten chartered barges,
squat. ugly craft, but each one roomy as a
freight train.
At sun up of the fifteenth the start down
stream was made. After a run of ten miles
Jamie, anxiously watching from the pilot
house, sighted his first patron. And there-
after the *‘A. Lincoln” came upon great
piles of sacked wheat, scores of waiting
harvest hands, with every turn of the crook-
ed Missouri. Not only were all the grow-
ers with whom Jamie had parleyed on
hand, hut many as well from the scattered
farms in the less fertile region on the west
side of the river, who had somehow got
news of the expedition. And the loading,
too, went smoothly. At every landing, as
Jamie had arranged, the crews of farm
hands were ready and did their work with
a will, afterward coming aboard the boat to
accompany the wheat to the cars.
There hadn’t been a shipment of wheat
like that on the Big Muddy for a quarter
century. At times, even Jamie wasa bit
awed by the vastness of the commerce he
had set moving. The freight charges pay-
able in advance, poured through his hands
into the steamer’s safe until the rusted iron
box was brimming over with checks, bills
and coin. And when the loading of the
wheat was done the ‘‘A. Lincoln’ was
completely hidden, save for her pilot house
and chimneys, within the toweiing piles of
sacks that freighted the flanking barges.
But Captain Rollins, Pilot Daley and the
rest on their mettle, brought Jamie’s cargo
safely down the treacherous, neglected riv-
er, and tied up before Missouri Station at
midnight exactly. And though nothing
more could be done until morning Jamie
went happy to his berth on the Steamer,
for, dimly shaped in the gloom, a long
string of box cars, with a giant engine up
ahead, slept on the main track in front of
his shanty depot.
Meanwhile a flood of wrath and bewilder-
ment bad swept over the high officials of
the C. & N.; had almost engulfed Burton,
the General Freight Agent—a flood for
which Agent J. Halloran was solely 1e-
sponsible. :
On the afternoon of the fifteenth, while
Jamie and his thousands of tons of wheat
were steaming down the Missouri, Burton,
in the course of his triparound the system,
had arrived in St. Paul, and sat in the local
offices, running through a batch of belated
reports from his chief clerk. On one
of these he read : ‘‘Demand for cars has
been very brisk. On the thirteenth Mil-
waukee made requisition for 150 for beer,
Omaha 50 for miscellaneous freight, Mis-
souri Station 200 for wheat —’
Barton got no further. An irritable man,
with no mercy for the blunders of others,
he gaped at the reporter for a minute as
though it were his death warrant, then,
bouncing from his chair, he rushed down-
hall into the office of Harry Kelly, Super-
intendent of the Dakota Division,
“Kelly,” he broke forth, brandishing the
chief clerk’s letter, ‘you didn’t send out
these cars, did you ?”’
“What cars? For where?’’ gasped the
superintendent.
*‘These two hundred wheats for Missouri
Station. Why, Kelly, that agent's crazy !
He couldn’t load two hundred cars at that
station in two hundred years—no not in
two thousand. Wheat! There isn’t a
spear within fifty miles of the place.”
“The order originated in your office,”
answered Kelly pugnaciously. ‘I sent the
cars yesterday, and four of the new Brooks
engines with them.”’
Barton sank into a seat and groaned.
The road was in the thick of the usual har-
vest car famine—those cars, and engines,
too, were sorely needed at a dozen differ-
ent points along the line.
**Well, it’s a bad mess,’ said he sourly
after a time. ‘I suppose I’ll have to go
out there to-night and straighten it up.
But,” he continued with a touch of returii-
ing good humor, *‘I’ll get one scalp auny-
how: that lunatic agent’s—what’s his
name ?"’
‘Halloran. But maybe the fellow’s gob
something for the cars. after all,’’ snggest-
ed Kelly, though by the sharpest goading
of his imagination he couldn’t figure it.
The General Freight Agent silenced the
Superintendent with a glare of disgust.
That evening Burton hitched his private
car to the Dakota Division passenger, aud
started for Missouri Station. When he
awoke next morning he was already tread-
ing upon the heels of the trouble. His
train was lying outside of Bowdle, unable
to get within half a mile of the depot; so
clogged was the yard with the multitude
of Jamie’s empties.
Burton breakfasted hurriedly, walked in-
to town in a bad bumor, and questioned
the crews of the three empty sections of
the wheat train which were on the siding.
He learned but little ; four sections bound
for Missouri Station had come as far as
'Bowdle the night previous. Three sections
had sidetracked according to the Division
Superintendent’s orders. The fourth had
gone on to Missouri Station and not yet
returned.
Burton then took one of the Brooks en-
gines and asked for rights down the exten-
sion. But though the Dispatcher called and 3
called Missouri Station he could get no an-
swer—Jamie Halloran being very mach en-
gaged out-of-doors that morning—so final-
ly Burton was forced to go without rights.
After a long-drawn, cautious trip Burton
reached the Station at noon, just as Jamie
was putting the last touches to his section.
Dropping from his engine at the giding
switch, he strode, fuming and sputtering
for the depot. : But before he had gone six
paces he halted, limp with surprise. He
saw, through a sluggish mist of dust, de-
spised Missour: Station, looking for all the
world like a Chicago freight terminal on a
busy day. He saw at the river-bank a
steamboat and a brace of barges all but
foundering beneath a cargo of sacked wheat
He saw a train of fifty cars nearly loaded
with it. He saw full three hundred braw-
ny harvesters bearing the fat sacks from the
boats to the cars. He saw a young fellow,
hatless, coatless, vestless—whom a passing
man told him was Halloran, the Agent—
scattering well-aimed directions with the
ease of a General Manager.
But for all his confusion, Burton sharp-
witted official that he was recognized that
a wheat crop was being moved in the Lit-
tle Bad Lands with a speed and spirit nev-
er beaten anywhere.
Gently he sent his engine back to Bow-
dle, then buttonholed Jamie and got his
story from first to last; though Jamie cut
it short, for Jamie had little time to give
that way, even to a General Freight
Agent. 3
‘Next time you think up a thing like
reiculars beforehand ; we're not
accustomed to deals of this size on the Da-
kota Division,”’ was Burton’s remark at the
end. Jamie recalled how his past commu-
nications to headquarters had been treated,
bus he deemed it best to make no comment
That was all Burton said’ to Jamie then,
but afterward he talked long of the under-
taking with Captain Rollins and with many
of the wheat-growers who had come down
on the ‘A. Lincoln.”
At eight o’¢lock that night Jamie's 200
cars,all loaded, bursting full, were on their
way to Minneapolis. The “*A. Lincoln had
gone up-river to carry home the farmers
and harvest hands. Only the gray dust of
the wheat that coated everything, and the
deep path from the landing that three hun-
dred pairs of roughshod feet had worn told
of the day’s work. Missouri Station was
again bleak and cheerless and deserted.
Only Burton and Jamie Halloran sat in
the darkening depot.
‘‘Hailoran,”’ Burton wassaying, ‘I guess
we won’t ask you to stay out here any long
er. I've been looking for a right-hand man
with a head like yours for three years. Can
you fix things to start with me for Chicago
to-morrow in my car ? Until we can assign
a new man we’ll let Missouri Station go it
alone; it’s earned a vacation.””—By Willis
Gibson.— Saturday Evening Post.
—————
Drinks in the Capitol.
The Hole in the Wall and the Committee Rooms
Sideboards of Years Ago.
Now that some of the followers of the
water wagons in the House and Senate are
threatening to abolish the sale of liquors
from the restaurants of the great building
on the bill, and the Washington authorities
have imposed fines of $300 each on the
keepers of the House and Senate restau-
rants, it is interesting to look back and see
how theliquid refreshments were dispensed
in the days gone by.
When Webster, Calboun and other legis-
lative giants wanted to wet their whistles
when engaged in making and unmaking
laws for their country, they visited what.
was known as the **Hole in the Wall,” a
small room not far removed from the post-
office of the Senate, which at that time oc-
cupied the present supreme court chamber.
This small, circular room, which got the
name of the ‘‘Hole in the Wall,”’ was like-
wise the first restaurant the upper house
ever knew, and, as may well be imagined,
the menu was not to be compared to that
of the present-day restaurant, the great
statesmen being satisfied with a sand wich
of cold beef tongue, ham, turkey, or a few
bard-boiled eggs.
While the,‘ ‘feed”’ was slow, the fluid was
plentiful and of the best, adulterated and
blended whiskeys not being tolerated. The
liquor was good, and as a rule the big men
took big drinks. The ‘““Hole in the Wall”
was for the convenience of Senators and
members and it was seldom that the ordin-
ary citizen managed to get a chance to let
the place know his presence. Of course, the
Statesmen were permitted to take their
friends in fora friendly bumper, but the pro-
prietor generally tnrned them out when not,
accompanied by a Senator or Representive.
To some extent the ‘‘Hole in the Wall’*
was a blind tiger and the proprietor was:
afraid of heing *‘pulled.”’
When the new Senate wing of the capi-
tol was finished provision was made in its
basement for the present restaurant and
post-office. Later on the library absorbed
the old post-office, incidentally taking in
the ‘‘Hole in the Wall,”’ but the little cir-
cular room remains as a reminder of legis-
lative convivialities of the days long gone.
When the “Hole in the Wall,” disap-
peared there sprung up the sideboard ad-
junct for the committee rooms, and there
flourished with a high band for many years,
and, in truth, some of these wet goods ar-
rangements still hold good in a few of the
rooms of the have-all-he wants Senators.
Theseside-hoard arrangements were fearful-
ly abused by many who werepermitted to
visit the rooms, and finally were re-
garded as a nuisance. And, too, some of:
the papers throughout the country began
to make a protest at the large sums annual--
ly set forth by the secretary of the Senate
as baving heen expended for ‘snuff, qui-
nine, bear's oil, pills,’’ &c., but which, im
fact, went for the genuine old Indian fight
er. The committee room bar was any-
thing but a success and gave Senators a
vast amount of annoyance from the fellows
who were ever ready to pan-bandle a little
liquid refreshments.
It was in 1866 that Henry Wilson intro-
duced a resolution in ‘Congress abolishing:
the sale of whiskey in the building. The
resolution passed, but it was never effec-
tive, and from that day to the present it
.bas been diffiult for a drink hunter to get
all he wanted, although at intervals it has.
been announced that the sale of lignid had
ceased.
Left $30,000 to Negro Maid.
Stepsons Contest the Will of Mrs. Maria Cooke.
Protest has been made against the pro-
bate of the will of Mrs. Maria J. Kemp
Cook, widow of Captain A. P. Cooke, of the
United States navy, who died recently in
Paris, leaving a life interest in $30,000 and
valuable family portraits and jewels to Jen-
‘nie Jiggetts, a negro maid.
When relatives in this country examined
the will ‘they found that George Pratt In-
gersoll, Mis. Cook's attorney, was not only
to receive the principal of the bequest to
the maid at her death, besides the pictures
and jewels, but he was made executor of the-
estate withous bond and was empowered to-
dispose cf any part of the property and in--
vest the proceeds as he saw fit.
Undue influence and the fact that the-
executor is a beneficiary under the will are-
the chief grounds of contest. The estate is. -
estimated to be worth $150,000.
Mrs. Cooke was a daughter of Aaron
Kemp, of the firm of Kemp, Day & Co., 116:
Wall street, N. Y. She was the second
wife of Capt. Cook, and was married to him.
in 1888. Capt. Cooke had two sons, Allen
Cooke, who is a missionary in Japan, and
Paul Cooke, who is a civil engineer in New
ork. ;
The Fatal Lightning,
The Wyoming valley was visited by a
heavy rain storm, accompanied hy thunder:
and lightning. At Forty Fort Joseph:
Kraska and his son, John, drove a cow:
from pasture to the barn during the height.
of the storm. They had just got into the-
barn when a bolt of lightning came in.
through the window and striking the son.
and cow, killed them instantly. The fath-
er was shocked but escaped injury. The-
steeple of the Independent Polish Catholic
church at Plymouth was struck and de-
molished.
Woman Left a Million for Crippled .
Rooster.
Mme. Silva, a Portuguese millionairess,
who died in Paris, left her whole fortune -
to keep a crippled rooster comfortable.
She was an ardent believer in the transmi-
gration of souls, and thought the soul of"
her dead husband dwelt in the rooster.
The will is so tangled with impossible
clauses that the courts will be asked to.
distribute the wealth among charities,
there being no heirs. y i :
—
Applicable To-day, as Well,
On Sunday morn the church bells ring,
To church each fair one goes;
The old go there to close their eyes,
The young to eye their clothes.
—Old Poem. .