“Is this safe?” I asked of the sharp-nosed man.
“Wa’all, yes, I s’pose so. It does break sometimes—did last month and killed eight men. I guess we are all right, though the rope’s tollable old and yest’dy they histed out a very heavy ingine and biler, which may hev strained it. Long ways to fall—if she does break!”
Cheerful suggestion for people who were fifteen hundred feet from the bottom and couldn’t possibly get off.
Another time on the Shore Line between Boston and New York, there was an old lady who had never been upon a railroad train before, and who was exceedingly nervous. Behind her sat the sharp-nosed man of that train, who answered all her questions.
“Ya’as, railroad travelin’ is dangerous. Y’see they git keerless. Only a year ago, they left a draw opened, and a train run into it, and mor’n a hundred passengers wuz drownded.”
“Merciful heavens!” ejaculated the old lady, in an agony of horror. “We don’t go over that bridge.”
“Yes we do, and we’re putty nigh to it now. And the men are jest ez keerless now ez they wuz then. They git keerless. I never travel over this road ef I kin help it.”
Then he went on and told her of every accident that he could remember, especially those that had occurred upon that road.
And the old lady, with her blood frozen by the horrible recitals, sat during the entire trip with her hands grasping tightly the arms of her seat, expecting momentarily to be hurled from the track and torn limb from limb, or to be plunged into the wild waters of the Sound.
TIBBITTS, OF OSHKOSH.