Arrival at the Transfer Track of South Omaha.
One dark, dismal, rainy morning, a little before daylight, I arrived with the remnant of our stock train on the stockyards transfer at South Omaha. The conductor and brakeman ordered me out of the way-car. So picking up my belongings I got out in the mud and rain and looked around for some shelter. There was a lot of railroad tracks and switches, but no houses or hotels, or anyone to inquire from, as I had learnt by experience that conductors, brakemen and switchmen never give any information to stockmen in a dark, rainy night.
So after wandering up and down the tracks for a ways, and not being able to find out which way the town lay I got on top of the stock cars, and huddling down in my rain-soaked rags I prepared to wait till daylight. The rain was very cold, and after a bit turned to snow and chilled me to the bone. But I was afraid to leave the stock cars, as I had never been there before and was sure to get lost if I left the stock, as the town is quite a ways from the transfer. I thought of Dillbery Ike, Packsaddle Jack and old Chuckwagon in the other world, and wondered why I should be left shivering in this awful storm, suffering the pangs of hunger and cold, while doubtless they had more fire than they really needed. No matter what their condition was in the other world, it was bound to be better than mine. Even the sheepmen's condition in the other world couldn't be much worse, though some claim there is a hell set apart a-purpose for sheepmen on the other side.
The Arrival of the Survivor at the Transfer.
My clothes were all worn out long ago; my beard had grown down to my knees and the hair on my head having never been cut since we started, now reached to my waist, and, of course, it and my beard was some protection from the storm. But I realized that if I stayed where I was it would only be a short time till I should meet my comrades who had gone before, and I thought it would be proper to make some preparations for the other world. I never had prayed or went to church much, 'cause a cowman don't have any chance to attend to these, as there is always either some calves to brand Sundays, or else some of the neighbors coming visiting. But I remembered a passage of scripture I had heard when a boy, and it came back to me now and kept ringing in my ears: "Forgive thine enemy." I never had an enemy in my whole life that I knew of, without it was this blamed railroad, and while I wasn't sure they was enemies, yet they had dealt me more misery than anyone, except it might be this stockyards company that was keeping me and my stock out on this transfer, starving and freezing in the storm after me and my steers had all got to be Rip Van Winkles getting that far on the road. I studied over the matter and could see it would be too great a job to forgive them both at the same time, and, of course, couldn't tell how much forgiveness the stockyards company would have to have, as I hadn't got through with them yet. There might be so much against them before they got my cattle unloaded that it would be impossible to forgive it.
It was very lucky, as it turned out afterwards, that I had this forethought, because, as I take it, forgiveness only comes from the heart no matter what your lips say, and your heart is the blamedest thing to control in forgiveness, as well as love, and when that stockyards company finally got around to bring my cattle in and unload them, I reckon it would have been impossible for any mortal man with the least spark of vitality left in his veins to have forgiven them. They have tried over and over to explain it to me by saying that when they built the transfer tracks and unloading chutes, their receipts only run about 1,500 to 2,000 cattle a day, with about the same number of hogs and about 200 sheep. And, now in the fall of the year, their receipts of cattle run up to 7,000 to 12,000 a day, with the same number of hogs and 20,000 to 25,000 of sheep, and they are trying to handle them with the same facilities they had to start with. So they are pretty near always so far behind in unloading stock in the busy season that it takes all the slack business season to finish unloading the stock that accumulated during the rush.
Having made up my mind to put off forgiving the stockyards company till some future date, I turned all my attention to forgiving the railroad company. I had noticed a good many religious people when some one had done them an injury and they couldn't get at them any other way they would pray for them. And while they generally asked the Lord to forgive them, yet they always told their side of the story in such a way that if the Lord was anyways easily prejudiced, he would be pretty tolerable slow about handing out any unsought-for clemency to their enemies, as they always started in by telling of all the mean things their enemies had ever done in order to remind the Lord what a big contract it was. After studying the matter over I thought this would be the proper way to pray for the railroad company. But after I got started telling the Lord what mean things they had done, I see 'twas no use to try to finish unless I'd hand the matter down to future generations, as one life wouldn't be long enough to get fairly started in.
The Inferno of the Transfer.
All night long I had heard voices on all sides of me and apparently the owners of them were in the direst distress. Some were praying undoubtedly, but the most were cursing. A few were crying and moaning with the cold and I thought for a long time I must have got into an inferno of lost souls, and added to my sufferings in the storm in which I had come close to death was the terror of listening to these distressing cries, and I longed for daylight to appear so these horrors would be explained.