Through the Past, Howsomever- The Crimson, 1876

WHEN I got to Mulligan's Junction, Ga., on my trip South, I wanted to go on to Pelican Swamp, and I asked the old Yankee conductor of the Lightning Express when it would leave for that point. "Wal," he replied, chimerically, "if Bill gets the wood sawed and split for the ingine, and- let's see- tomorrow's the 1st of the month, that's washin-day, if Nancy, that 'ere old niggeress don't use up all the water, and if there should happen to be another feller or missis going your way, and if there's a barrel of flour or a keg of whiskey for the baggage-car, and if Bill kin put astitch in the worst rip in the biler [here in winked], I don't see what's to hender but we mought get so's to be eff some time Thursday, that's day after tomorrow. Anyhow, stranger, I would advise you to be round then." Well, the long and short it, it was cards and whiskey between the conductor, the station-man, Bill the engineer, the fireman, and myself for most of the next forty-eight hours till Thursday noon, when the conductor said we were all ready to start, if we only had another passenger. In the interval of waiting the conductor read an old Mulligan County Gazette, the engineer and fireman played at stick-knife, and I examined the engine. Here are my notes:-

"Biler," sort of base-burning stove tipped over. Cylinders, like teapots. Driving-wheels about the size of the largest felt hat you would see in the College Yard. No cab; Bill "straddles" the rear of the "biler." No smoke-stack. Leak handy. No bell or whistle; Bill probably "hollers" when he sees anything on the track. Whole made of pine-wood, newly shingled and lined in spots with tin. Name, "Sunny South." Rest of train, baggage and smoking (cards and whiskey) car, size of a royal octavo coffin; palace car, like an Irish jaunting-car.

After making these notes, I went and bought a twenty-five-couponed palace-car ticket to Pelican Swamp, for four quids, two drinks, and a bowie-knife; then I sat down and waited half an hour.

Then, by good luck, in came an old lady of seventy, going to spend a week with her niece. She had three trunks, two carbet-bags, a band-box, an umbrella, a bundle of clothes, a parasol, a bundle of tracts, a jar of pickles, some pepper-mints, a few odd parcels, the usual squalling baby, and a few other indispensable. Of course I was only too happy to help her in any way, i. c. look after her ticket, seat, trunks, parcels, grandson, etc. To cut short, at last the conductor gave us a good start, and we wheezed off at the speed of six miles a week. At about every other telegraph-post, just as the baby was getting tranquilized, the conductor would step into our car and "holler," "Tickets, please. Change cars for-" we couldn't hear where, but we surrendered a coupon and moved into the baggage-car, that being the only obvious change; and just as the baby was calming down again, we would come to another post and have to surrender another coupon and move back to the palace-car, I of course, moving the old lady, babe and baggage, every time. By and by we came to a corner, and on going round it saw a calf on the track. It did not move at our approach, but only stared and continued to graze coolly on the rails and sleepers. The train came to a stop, which was not very hard, considering its rate. Then the conductor and Bill and the fireman spent an hour in trying by "hollering," chasing, forcing, coaxing, pelting, praying, beseeching, and cursing to induce that calf to leave the track. It only meandered slowly along, just a "lectle grain ahead." They all returned finally to the train. Bill furiously swearing, "By the holy horns of Beelzebub, if I bust my biler, I'll run that blasted critter down." The tender was emptied into the boiler, and the fireman sat on the safety-valve, and we ploughed along like an enraged elephant whose legs have been cut off by a circular saw. Still that calf kept a "lectle mite ahead," now and then playfully tapping the boiler front with its hind feet. At last it was too much for patience; Bill madly pulled the throttle for a final spurt, when, quite unfortunately,- sp-t-t-t-r,- the boiler ripped, all the water trickled helplessly out, and the driving-wheels rolled down either bank. We were half-way to Pelican Swamp after six hours' travelling. I instantly determined to leave the old lady, bab and baggage, to the tender mercies of the railway officials, and I seized my carpetbag and walked the rest of the way in fifteen minutes.

The last I saw of the wreck the calf had devoured most of the old lady's pickles and peppermints, and had begun on her bonnet; and the conductor, Bill, and the fireman were asking how it happened, and laying the blame on each other. I returned North by another route.