For more than three years Eddie Wach continued at this post of duty elevating his fellow men by his example, never yielding to temptation which at times fairly shrieked with disappointment in not being able to make him a convert to the “Havre Club” principles. Every month the major part of his salary would be sent to Chicago and the young man would spend his spare moments in study.
A few days before he was to leave Havre, young Wach received a call from Mr. Broadwater, one of the most influential citizens of the town and the state. Mr. Broadwater, although known to Wach in a business way, had never spoken to him till this day.
“I want to tell you,” began Mr. Broadwater, “that I have been watching you for the past three years and I have never seen you do anything unbecoming a gentleman and I have seen you sorely tried. I don’t know of anyone else like you in our city and I want to tell you that I consider you the only gentleman in Havre. In leaving us I want you to bear away with you that distinction together with our best wishes.”
Thus it was that E. F. Wach won the hearts and respect of the citizens of that little frontier town and now as he looks back from his present official position in Chicago he occasionally thinks of the time when he was called “The Gentleman of Havre.”
[On the Wing.]
The late Col. M. D. Crain was a man of decided personality and made warm and lasting friends. His practical jokes and queer sayings will be related as long as there is an old timer alive to tell the story.
The Colonel was a stickler for technicalities and was ready to immolate himself to his own theories.
He was in early days manager of the Bloomington, Ill., office. He was also operator and messenger.
Operator Crain would occasionally want to draw some money and he wanted to do it in the right way. So Operator Crain would write a note as follows to Manager Crain: