FISHING FOR PIECES OF WOMEN.
There are lots of ludicrous scenes to be observed on the railroads and
conductors are loaded with stories that would cause a marble monument to
keep its sides a laughing. Some day we are going to borrow a conductor,
and take him out in the woods, and place a revolver to his head and make
him deliver a lot of stories. The other day as conductor Fred Underwood's
train from Chicago, arrived on the trestle work on the south side, the
whistle blew, the air break was touched off, and the train came up
standing so quick that a woman lost her false teeth in the sleeper, and
everybody's hair stood up like a mule's ears. Every window had a head out,
and when the conductor got out on the platform he saw the engineer and
fireman on the ends of the ties looking down into the mud and water,
shading their eyes as though looking for the eclipse.
There, sticking out of the mud were two human legs, and as one leg had a
piece of listing around it, just above the veal, the conductor knew,
instinctively, that the surface indications showed that there was a woman
in there. Then he thought that the engine had probably struck a female,
and tore her all to pieces, and of course he knew that the company would
expect him to bring home enough for a mess, or a funeral.
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