In we crawled and rode in comfort the night through. Early next morning, as the train sped through a desolate wilderness, another brakeman climbed into the car.
“How do you do?” he began. “We heard about you from the boys back there, and we’ll see you as close to Ogden as we can. But you’ll have to leave this car, as it’ll be dropped next stop, and the only place for you is in an empty fruit car way up near the head of the train. You’ll have to go over the top while she’s spinning. Do you think you can make it?” looking at me anxiously.
“Sure,” I answered boldly, my tone implying that I had walked the tops of moving freights since the age of three.
Strapping our bundles to our backs, we started. I confess to a peculiar sensation in the pit of my stomach as I trod the narrow plank nailed along the apex of the roofs, and jumped from car to car, while the train rocked heavily along, lurching around the curves, and the wild landscape rotated past on either side. But after the first few minutes the feeling passed and I was able to conclude the journey with all the sang-froid of an old hand.
“After to-day, I’ll be expecting to meet women brakies most any time. You’d make a swell member of the Union,” volunteered our guide, as we settled ourselves in the fruit car.
The day passed and the night. About four in the morning another brakeman appeared and roused us.
“We will stop at Uintah about sunrise,” he said. “You will have to go back to the rear of the train, and be ready to drop off as the train slows down for the station. Get away as quickly as you can, for if you are discovered riding on this train, the whole bunch of us may spend a month in jail.”
So I took another stroll along the swaying roofs and climbed onto the rear platform of the caboose. As the train began slowing for Uintah, we flipped off and bolted away from the track.
After many miles of wilderness the fertile valley looked very beautiful to our tired eyes. Accustomed from childhood to an abundance of fresh fruit the year round, the restricted diet of recent months has told on me. Now berry vines, fruit orchards and vineyards reminded me of home, and we determined to buy a little fruit, fresh from the garden.
Passing up a tree-bordered roadway, we came upon a long, low farmhouse, squatted at ease upon a terraced hillside, the brown of its unpainted wooden frame blending with the russet hues of tree trunks and knotted loops of trailing grape vines. A fluffy maltese kitten with arching back scampered with sidelong leaps to meet us, then frolicked up a tree. Two dogs set up a racket and a winsome, dark-eyed girl came to the door. I asked for ten cents worth of raspberries. With a charming smile she led the way to the roomy kitchen, and taking down a bright tin pail, placed it in my hands with instructions to go right into the patch and help ourselves to what we wanted. We busied ourselves among the tall, green canes, and as the scent of flowers and fruit came to my nostrils, it seemed that I had been transported to the beautiful spot where I was born.