A NIGHT OFFICE IN TEXAS--A STUTTERING DESPATCHER
It was not long after Mary threw me over that I became tired of X---- and
gave up my job and started south. I said it was on account of ill
health, but the last thing that cussed first trick despatcher said to me
was, "Never mind, you old spoon, you'll get over this attack in a very
short while."
I landed in St. Louis one bright morning and went up to the office of
the chief despatcher of the Q. M. & S., and applied for an office on his
division. He had none to give me but wired the chief despatcher at Big
Rock, and in answer thereto I was sent the next morning to Healyville.
And what a place I found! The town was down in the swamps of southeast
Missouri, four miles north of the Arkansas line, and consisted of the
depot and twenty or twenty-five houses, five of which were saloons.
There was a branch road running from here to Honiton, quite a settlement
on the Mississippi river, and that was the only possible excuse for an
officer at this point. The atmosphere was so full of malaria, that you
could almost cut it with an axe. I stayed there just three days, and
then, fortunately, the chief despatcher ordered me to come to his
office. He wanted me to take the office at Boling Cross, near the Texas
line, but I had the traveling fever and wanted to go further south, and
he sent me down on the I. & G. N., and the chief there sent me to
Herron, Texas. There wasn't much sickness in the air around Herron, but
there were just a million fleas to every square inch of sand in the
place. Herron was one of the few towns in a very extensive cattle belt,
and a few days after I had arrived I noticed the town had filled up with
"cow punchers." They had just had their semi-annual round up, and were
in town spending their money and having a whooping big time. You
probably know what that means to a cow-boy. I was a tenderfoot of the
worst kind, and every one at the boarding-house and depot seemed to take
particular delight in telling me of the shooting scrapes and rackets of
these cow-boys, and how they delighted in making it warm for a
tenderfoot. Bob Wolfe, the day man at the depot, told me how at times
they had come up and raised particular Cain at the station, especially
when there was a new operator on hand. I didn't half believe all their
stories, but I will confess that I had a few misgivings the first night
when I went to work. One night passed safely enough, but the second was
a hummer from the word go. The office was somewhat larger than the
telegraph offices usually are in small towns. The table was in the
recess of a big bay window, giving me a clear view of the I. & G. N.
tracks, while along the front ran the usual long wide platform. The P. &
T. C. road crossed at right angles at one end of the platform, and one
operator did the work for the two roads. There were two lamps over my
desk--one on each side of the bay window--and one was out in the
waiting-room. I also kept a lantern lighted to carry when I went out to
trains.
All through the early part of the night, I heard sounds of revelry and
carousing, accompanied by an occasional pistol shot, up in the town, but
about half past eleven these sounds ceased, and I was congratulating
myself that my night, would after all, be uneventful. About twelve
o'clock, however, there arose just outside the office the greatest
commotion I had ever heard in my life. I was eating my midnight lunch,
and had a piece of pie in my hand, when I heard the tramp of many feet
on the platform. It sounded like a regiment of infantry, and in a
minute there came the report of a shot, and with a crash out went one of
my lights, a shower of glass falling on the table. Before I could
collect myself there came another shot and smash out went the other
light. I dropped my pie and spasmodically grasped the table. The only
lights left were the one in the waiting-room and my lantern, which made
it in the office little better than total darkness. All the time the
tramp, tramp on the platform was coming closer and closer, and my heart
was gradually forcing its way up in my mouth. In a moment the
waiting-room door was thrown open, and with a wild whoop and a big
hurrah, the crowd came in. The door between the office and the
waiting-room was closed, but that made no difference to my visitors;
they smashed it open and swarmed into the office. One of them picked up
the lantern, and swaggering over to where I sat all trembling with fear,
and expecting that _my_ lights would go out next, raised it to my face.
They all crowded around me and one of them gave me a good punch in the
ribs. Then the one with the lantern said, "Well, fellows, the little
cuss is game. He didn't get under the table like the last one did. Kid,
for a tenderfoot, you're a hummer."
Get under the table! I couldn't. I would have given half my interest in
the hereafter to have been able to crawl under the table or to have run
away. But fright held its sway, and locomotion was impossible.
For about five minutes the despatcher had been calling me for orders,
and in a trembling voice I asked them to let me answer and take the
order. "Cert," said one of them, who appeared to be the leader, "go on
and take the order, and then take a drink with us."
By the dim light of only that lantern, with my order pad on a table
covered with broken glass, and smattered with pie, I finally copied the
order, but it was about the worst attempt I had ever made; and the
conductor remarked when he signed it, that it would take a Philadelphia
lawyer to read it. The cow-punchers, however, from that time on were
very good friends of mine, and many a pleasant Sunday did I spend on
their ranches. They afterwards told me that Bob Wolfe had put them up to
their midnight visit in order to frighten me. They certainly succeeded.
My service at Herron was not very profitable, the road being in the
hands of receivers, and for four months none of us received a cent of
wages. The road was called the "International & Great Northern," but we
facetiously dubbed it the "Independent & Got Nothing."
Some months after this I was transferred down to the southern division,
and made night operator at Mankato. This was really about the best
position I had yet struck: good hours, plenty of work and a fine office
to do it in, and eighty dollars a month. The agent and day man were both
fine fellows, and there was no chore work around the station--a baggage
smasher did that. The despatchers up in "DS" office were pleasant to
work with and as competent a lot of men as ever touched a key. I had
never met any of them when I first took the office, though of course I
soon knew their names, and the following incident will disclose how and
under what unusual circumstances I formed the acquaintance of one of
them, Fred De Armand, the second trick man.
About four weeks after I took the Mankato office, engine 333, pulling a
through livestock freight north, broke a parallel rod, and besides
cutting the engineer into mince-meat, caused a great wreck. This took
place about two miles and a half north of Mankato. The hind man came
back and reported it, and being off duty, I caught up a pocket
instrument and some wire, and jumping on a velocipede, was soon at the
wreck. I cut in an office in short order, and "DS" soon knew exactly
how matters stood. One passenger train south was tied up just beyond the
wreck, and in about an hour and a half the wrecker appeared in charge of
the trainmaster. I observed a young man twenty-eight or thirty years of
age standing around looking on, and once when I was near him I noticed
that he stammered very badly.
I carefully avoided saying anything to that young man, because, I, too,
at times, had a rather bad impediment in my speech. It asserted itself
especially when I heard any one else stutter, or when the weather was
going to change; the men who knew me well said they could always
foretell a storm by my inability to talk. From my own experience,
however, I knew that when a stammerer heard another man stammer, he
imagined that he was being made fun of, and all the fight in him came at
once to the surface; and as this young man was about twice my size, I
did my best to keep away from him. But in a few moments he came over to
where I was and said to me, "A-a-a-sk 'DS' t-t-t-t-o s-s-s-end out
m-m-m-y r-r-ain c-c-c-c-oat on th-th-th-irteen." Every other word was
followed by a whistle.
My great help in stammering was to kick with my right foot. I knew what
was coming, and tried my best to avert the trouble. I drew in a long
breath and said: "Who sh-sh-sh-all I s-s-s-ay y-y-y-ou are?" and my
right foot was doing great execution. True to its barometrical
functions, my throat was predicting a storm. It came.
He looked at me for a second, grew red in the face, then catching me by
the collar, gave me a yank, that made me see forty stars, and said,
"B-b-b-last you! wh-wh-at d-d-o y-y-ou m-mean b-b-y m-mocking me? I'll
sm-sm-ash y-y-our b-b-b-lamed r-r-ed head.'"
Speech left me entirely then, and I am afraid I would have been most
beautifully thumped, had not Sanders, the trainmaster, come over and
stopped him. He called him "De Armand," and I then knew he was the
second trick despatcher. After many efforts De Armand told Sanders how I
had mocked him. Sanders didn't know me and the war clouds began to
gather again; but Johnson, the conductor of the wrecker, came over and
said, "Hold on there, De Armand, that kid ain't mocking you; he stammers
so bad at times that he kicks a hole in the floor. Why, I have seen him
start to say something to my engineer pulling out of Mankato, and he
would finish it just as the caboose went by, and we had some forty cars
in the train at that."
At this a smile broke over De Armand's face, and he grasped my hand and
said, "Excuse m-m-m-e k-k-id; but y-y-you k-k-know how it is
y-y-yourself." You may well believe that I did know.
One night, shortly after this, I was repeating an order to De Armand,
and in the middle of it I broke myself very badly. He opened his key,
and said, "Kick, you devil, kick!" And I got the merry ha-ha from up and
down the line. But in giving me a message a little while after he flew
the track, and I instantly opened up and said, "Whistle, you tarrier,
whistle!" Maybe he didn't get it back.