As a general thing railroad men are “pretty fly,” as the saying is,
and not very apt to be scared. But a case occurred up on the La Crosse
division of the St. Paul road last week that caused a good deal of hair
to stand.
The train from St. Paul east runs to La Crosse, where all hands are
changed, and the new gang run to Chicago. On the trip of which we speak
there was placed in the baggage car at St. Paul a coffin, and at Lake
City a parrot in a cage was put in. Before the train got to Winona other
baggage was piled on top, so the coffin only showed one end, and the
parrot cage was behind a trunk, next to the barrel of drinking water,
out of sight, and where the cage would not get jammed. At La Crosse the
hands were changed, and conductor Fred Cornes, as 6:35 arrived, shouted
his cheery “All aboard,” and the train moved off. The coffin was seen
by all the men in the baggage car, and a solemnity took possession of
everybody. Railroad men never feel 'entirely happy when a corpse is on
the train.
The run to Sparta was made, and Fred went to the baggage car, and
noticing the coffin and the mournful appearance of the boys, he told
them to brace up and have some style about them He said it was what we
had all to come to, sooner or later, and for his part a corpse or two,
more or less, in a car made no difference to him. He said he had rather
have a car load of dead people than go into an emigrant train when some
were eating cheese and others were taking off their shoes and feeding
infants.
He sat down in a chair and was counting over his tickets, and wondering
where all the passes come from, when the Legislature is not in session.
The train was just going through the tunnel near Greenfield, and Fred
says.
“Boys, we are now in the bowels of the earth, way down deeper than a
grave. Whew! how close it smells.”
Just then the baggagemaster had taken a dipper of water from the barrel,
and was drinking it, when a sepulchral voice, that seemed to come from
the coffin, said:
“Dammit, let me out!”
The baggage man had his mouth fall of water, and when he heard the voice
from the tombs, he squirted the water clear across the car, onto the
express messenger, turned pale, and leaned against a trunk.
Fred Cornes heard the noise, and, chucking the tickets into his pocket
and grabbing his lantern, he said, as he looked at the coffin:
“Who said that! Now, no ventriloquism on me, boys. I'm an old traveler,
and don't you fool with me.”
The baggage man had by this time got his breath, and he swore upon his
sacred honor that the corpse in there was alive, and asked to be let
out.
Fred went out of the car to register at Greenfield, and the express
messenger opened the door to put out some egg cases, and the baggage man
pulled out a trunk. He was so weak he couldn't lift it. They were all as
pale as a whitewashed fence.
After the train left Greenfield they all gathered in the car and
listened at a respectful distance from the coffin. All was as still as
a car can be that is running twenty-five miles an hour. They gathered
a little nearer, but no noise, when Cornes said they were all off their
base, and had better soak their heads.
“You fellows are overworked, and are nervous, The company ought to give
you a furlough, and pay your expenses to the sea shore.”
Just then there was a rustling as if somebody had rolled over in bed and
a voice said, as plainly as possible:
“O, how I suffer!”
If a nitro-glycerine bomb had exploded there could not have been more
commotion. The express man rushed forward, and was going to climb over
into the tender of the engine, the baggage man started for the emigrant
car to see if there was anybody from the place in Germany that his hired
girl came from, and Cornes happened to think that he had not collected
fare from an Indian that got on at Greenfield with a lot of muskrat
skins. In less than four seconds the corpse and parrot were the sole
occupants of the car. The three train men and a brakeman met in the
emigrant car and looked at each other.
They never said a word for about two minutes, when Fred opened the ball.
He said there was no use of being scared, if the man was dead he was not
dangerous, and if he was alive the four of them could whip him, if he
undertook to run things. What they were in duty bound to do was to let
him out. No man could enjoy life screwed down in a sarcophagus like
that.
“Now,” says Cornes, “there is a doctor from Milwaukee in the sleeper.
I will go and ask him to come in the baggage car, and you fellows go in
and pull the trunks off that coffin, and we will take a screw driver
and a can-opener and give the man air. That's doing as a fellow would be
done by.”
So he went and got the doctor and told him he had got a case for him.
He wanted him to practice on a dead man. The doctor put on his pants and
overcoat, and went with Fred. As they came into the baggage car the boys
were lifting a big trunk off the coffin, when the voice said:
“Go easy. Glory hallelujah!”
Then they all turned pale again, but all took hold of the baggage and
worked with a will, while the doctor held a screw driver he had fished
out of a tool box.
The doctor said the man was evidently alive, but the chances were that
he might die from suffocation before they could unscrew all the screws
of the outside box and the coffin, and he said he didn't know but the
best way would be to take an ax and break it open.
Fred said that was his idea, and he was just going for the ax when the
brakeman moved the water barrel, tipped over the parrot cage, and the
parrot shook himself and looked mad and said. “There, butterfingers!
Polly wants a cracker.”
Cornes had just come up with the axe, and was about to tell the brakeman
to chop the box, when the parrot spoke.
“Well, by-----,” said the baggageman. The doctor laughed, the brakeman
looked out the door to see how the weather was, and the conductor said,
“I knew it was a parrot all the time, but you fellows were so anxious to
chop into the box that I was going to let you. I never saw a lot of men
with so much curiosity.” Then they all united in trying to bribe the
doctor not to tell the story in Milwaukee.