CONDUCTOR SMITH’S DILEMMA
Is there one, among the thousands that have traveled on his train, who does not know and, knowing, does not esteem, Conductor Smith—“Billy” Smith of the Blue Ridge Railroad? Surely not, for like his prototype, Baines Carew, the sympathetic attorney of the Bab Ballads, who was so overcome by the recital of his clients’ woes that he “had scarcely strength to take his fee,” Billy, the embodiment of courtesy and kindliness, never collected a fare or punched a ticket without a deprecatory smile and look of sympathy, as tho’ it grieved him very much. This accommodating disposition has made him an easy prey to an exacting public. Other trains have passed over his road, but the cream of the travel has always been reserved for Billy. His the happiness of looking after tow-headed boys sent to visit distant relatives; his the honor of escorting to and from boarding-school, grown girls who have been provided with half-fare tickets by their thrifty mothers; his the privilege of hauling to and fro, ladies who have been blessed with twins by a prodigal Providence, ladies with birdcages, ladies with baby-carriages, ladies with cats in baskets, ladies with geraniums in pots, ladies with home-made jams and pickles in jars, ladies with bundles and bandboxes, ladies with an overweening desire to pour into his sympathetic ear divers family secrets—the exact number of teeth the last baby but one has cut, the number and variety of fashionable ailments considerately diagnosed by their family physicians, etc., etc. With these and like confidences the patient conductor’s time is not infrequently whiled away between stations.
Thus for years has Billy Smith trod—or rather joggled along—the path of duty between Walhalla and Belton. In the spring-time, when rill and river are swollen by heavy rains, and the tawny waters rush down the hillsides, gullying the plowed lands and scattering the rich soil “out among the neighbors,” when the pale blue wild violet and the waxen Easter lily peep from dell and dingle, and the peach and plum trees, clustering around the farmsteads, open their pink and white petals to the sunshine and the dew; in the summer, when the golden bees swarm over the clover blooms and the ripe grain falls before the sweep of the scythe; in the autumn, when the chestnut burrs lie on the sod and the dead leaves swirl in the blast; in the winter, when the Blue Ridge is wrapped in a slumber-robe of snow and the frost crystals, forced out of the icy earth, sparkle on the sides of the deep cuts—in all seasons and in all weathers—Billy Smith plods on. Time and toil have streaked his beard with gray, and deepened the lines in his face, but his smile is as sweet and his hands and feet as willing as ever they were in his younger days, and, until he shall run his last train through the golden gates of the new Jerusalem and pass in his manifests to be checked up by the Almighty Auditor, he will doubtless be seen at the termini of the Blue Ridge Railroad, loaded to the gunwales, like a lighter at a coaling station, with babies, pug dogs, flowering plants and all the miscellaneous paraphernalia apparently inseparable from itinerant femininity, and will still take a commanding position in the centre of his coach and diurnally sing, alas! “that old sweet song:” “Belton, Belton! Junction Columbia and Greenville Railroad! About fifty minutes, fifty minutes, before the train comes for Columbia! Passengers going in the direction of Columbia will have to git off now, you’ll have to git off, as this train leaves in about ten minutes, ten minutes, for Greenville, for Greenville—which is in the opposite direction from Columbia!”
There are moments in every life when flowers are no longer sweet, and women no longer fair; when there is no music in the song of birds, no merriment in the laughter of children, and all the world seems dark.
One of these moments came to Billy Smith the other day, when Conductor Fielding of the main line unloaded at Belton, Diana Hawlback, an elderly black woman from Beaufort County, who, with her grand-daughter “Lizzybet’,” a spotted pig in a bag, two barnyard roosters and a hen, tied by the legs, four quarts of roasted peanuts, a bushel of “Crazy Jane” sweet potatoes, a large bundle of bedding, and divers and sundry other belongings, was on her way to Pendleton to visit relatives. “The fight came up,” as the Congressional reporters say, “on the recurrence of the previous question,” which was, in this case, an emphatic demand for the payment of full fare for Diana’s “gran’,” “Lizzybet’,” a leggy girl of apparently fourteen years of age. “Cap’n,” said Diana, “dat gal is a ’leben yeahs old gal, en’ wehrebbuh I does tek’um on de train, de buckruh nebbuh does chaa’ge me mo’ den chillun money fuh de gal. Enty you ’membuh, suh, de yeah w’en de dry drought come? Well, dat gal bawn een dat same berry yeah een de middle paa’t ub de summuh, ’cause I ’membuh berrywell de dry drought dry up all de swamp en’ backwatuh en’ t’ing een Augus’, en’ all de man on de plantesshun gone out een de swamp en’ ketch de alligettuh out’n ’e hole, en’ dis gal Lizzybet’ ma—him name Benus—eat too much alligettuh w’en Lizzybet’ wuz a t’ree weeks’ ole gal, en’ de ’ooman dead en’ lef’ dis gal on my han’. De gal’ pa wuz my nyoungis’ son, Pollydo’, en’ alldo’ de scriptuh say, ‘Paul kin plant en’ Pollydo’ kin water, but Gawd duh de man w’at gib de greese,’ stillyet Pollydo’ en’ him bredduh Paul plant de crap en’ watuhr’um alltwo ’tell de dry drought come, but Gawd nebbuh sen’ de greese ’tell Pollydo’ ketch de alligettuh en’ bile’um, en’ stillyet, alldo’ ’e folluh’ de scriptuh’ wu’d en’ gib ’e lady de alligettuh greese w’at de Lawd sen’, yet de lady dead, so I don’t t’ink dat tex’, w’at my locus pastuh resplain, could be specify, elseso I don’t t’ink Pa Kinlaw could be onduhstan’ de scriptuh berry well, or de greese nebbuh would’uh ’stroy’d de ’ooman. Stan’ up gal, en’ ’low de buckruh fuh look ’puntop yo’ foot. Cap’n, you ebbuh see, sence you bawn, shishuh feet lukkuh dat on a fo’teen yeahs ole gal? Ent you know,” said she, as Conductor Smith’s eyes opened at the size of the pedal extremities exhibited, “ent you know dat a ’leben yeahs ole gal gots bigguh foot den a fo’teen yeahs ole gal? Dis gal nebbuh had a shoe ’pun ’e foot, en’ ’e foot gots nutt’n’ fuh stop’um frum grow. Befo’ you tek’way all my money fuh tek dis gal to Pendletun, I wish you, please, suh, kin eeduh go yo’self, elseso sen’ uh ansuh to my sistuhlaw, Miss Frajuh, w’at lib to Mistuh Brissle place to Cumbee, en’ ax’um wedduh dis gal Lizzybet’, w’ich him is my gran’, is mo’ den ’leben yeah ole.”