Three Boys Travel Far in Piano Box.
The trucker wheeled the heavy piano box into the Erie freight house, at Fourteenth and Clark Streets, Chicago, and dumped it on the floor.
“That’s some box!” he complained.
“You bet it is!”
The words came from the mouth of a youth whose grinning head stuck out from the top of the box. The trucker fell over his truck and ran yelling into the night. Attracted by the noise, the night watchman, William Schimmel, came into the freight house.
“Hey!” shouted the boy. “Can I get some water?”
Schimmel questioned the head.
“I’m Willard Montague, snake charmer,” it said. “Got two pythons and their baby here. Get me some water for myself and some cocaine for the snakes.”
Mr. Schimmel left the freight house in a great hurry. He described what he had seen and heard to C. D. Ward, general agent; A. C. Brundage, claim agent; Policeman Toussaint, and Detectives Zohora and Jansen. Ward called up James Burke, superintendent of the Chicago terminal division of the Erie, who came down in his auto. The crowd grouped itself around the box, which was marked. “Don’t Stand on End,” and signaled for the young man inside to stick his head through the trap. Montague, grinning, complied.
Burke asked to see the snakes.
“They’re wrapped up in those comforters,” said Montague. “I don’t like to disturb ’em. Besides, I couldn’t get out of here in time.”
Burke insisted. Montague made a dive at the comforters, whistled through his teeth, and drew his hand out sharply.
“One of ’em kinda catch you?” prompted Burke.
“Yeah,” said Monty, sucking his thumb; “the big one sorta got me.”
“How big are they?”
“One’s ’bout eleven feet long. Ugly. Haven’t been fed. Been keeping them asleep with ‘coke.’ Just run out of the dope.”
“Well, let me see their scales,” Burke insisted.
Two electric lights were rigged up and held in the opening so that Burke and others might have a glimpse of the interior of the box.
Monty was stirring up the blankets as though some monstrous reptile were there.
“Come, come!” said Burke. “If you don’t pull that comforter off that boa constrictor I will.”
Then the covering was yanked off and the men on top of the box looked directly into the cherubic face of another grinning boy. Simultaneously another heap of cov[Pg 66]ers back of Montague was thrown off and a third head revealed.
“Those are the pythons, are they?”
“Yes, those are the snakes.”
“Well, now, suppose you come out here and tell us the story.”
One at a time the boys wriggled through the trapdoor and came out, blinking, to face the audience. Each was bathed in perspiration and all were in stocking feet.
A reporter took their names: Willard Fox, 18 years old; Howillard Edward Montague, 22 years old, and Carl Espe, 17 years old. All were from Binghamton, N. Y.
They had been disguised as a piano box for seven days, and were on their way to Alameda, Cal., to the ranch of Montague’s uncle, Doctor William Tappan Lumb. They chose to go as a piano box because it was cheaper than three passenger tickets.
The box was built by a carpenter in Binghamton. It had a false bottom and the sides were padded. The boys put stones in the bottom, and also their suit cases.
“We expected to be on the way about three weeks,” said Monty, who seemed to be the leader of the expedition. “We took along canned goods, bread and cereals, coffee and tobacco.
“We had a phonograph and records, but it is broken. We had also arranged to have light. We had some electric batteries in the false bottom which connected with a bulb, but the bulb broke.
“There was also a stove and alcohol to run it. We have shoes, coats, sweaters, hats, and, in fact, all our possessions.”
They even had a framed certificate on the wall—Montague’s diploma from the “Boan Lake, Mich., College of Manopathy.”
“We didn’t have much sleep, add we got bumped around some,” said Fox, “but, say, wasn’t it a peach of an adventure? My parents live in Wiegel, N. Y., and Monty and Espe haven’t any.”
“The boys have violated a Federal interstate law,” said Mr. Burke, “but I don’t know what action the road will take. We shall probably take steps against the shipper and the man who was to receive them at the other end. The fare was to be paid in Alameda.”
Officer Toussaint questioned the travelers, then turned them over to the South Clark Street police. He could not say definitely what would be done with them.[Pg 67]
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