“It was very lonesome for me and I longed to be home again with my dear old friends, and I determined to remain at home if I ever got back. You have no idea what homesickness is until you have had the actual experience.
“About 11 o’clock one night, I was passing a saloon near my home when I heard a phonograph playing ‘Kentucky Home.’
“I entered the place and asked the bartender to change a silver dollar into nickels, which he did.
“I sat down by the phonograph and played that piece over and over and over again, till my nickels were gone, then I changed another dollar which went the same way.
“I was, by this time, completely saturated with ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ and the longing to return came so strong that I straightway went to my hotel, packed my trunk, paid my bill, purchased a ticket for Louisville and took the 4 A. M. train for Denver, from whence I departed for home and here’s where I’m going to live and die, in spite of all inducements to show me some more favored clime.
“Yes, I love ‘Kaintuck’ and I love that old song you hum,” and the stranger was singing his favorite air when the train pulled into Horse Cave.
[The Office at Spirit Lake.]
Mr. Hugh McPhee, the superintendent of the Western Union Telegraph Company at Los Angeles, Cal., was night operator at Spirit Lake on the trans-continental line in his early boyhood days. Every operator that worked for the trans-continental line knows Spirit Lake because each one of them served an apprenticeship at that station.