Two months afterwards she married the chief despatcher, and the profession lost the best woman operator in the business. I was dreadfully cut by the ending of affairs, but she had said, "Red headed operators were not in her class," and I reckon she was about right.
Surely, she was a direct descendant from the Spartan mothers.
CHAPTER V
A NIGHT OFFICE IN TEXAS—A STUTTERING DESPATCHER
It was not long after Mary threw me over that I became tired of X—— and gave up my job and started south. I said it was on account of ill health, but the last thing that cussed first trick despatcher said to me was, "Never mind, you old spoon, you'll get over this attack in a very short while."
I landed in St. Louis one bright morning and went up to the office of the chief despatcher of the Q. M. & S., and applied for an office on his division. He had none to give me but wired the chief despatcher at Big Rock, and in answer thereto I was sent the next morning to Healyville. And what a place I found! The town was down in the swamps of southeast Missouri, four miles north of the Arkansas line, and consisted of the depot and twenty or twenty-five houses, five of which were saloons. There was a branch road running from here to Honiton, quite a settlement on the Mississippi river, and that was the only possible excuse for an officer at this point. The atmosphere was so full of malaria, that you could almost cut it with an axe. I stayed there just three days, and then, fortunately, the chief despatcher ordered me to come to his office. He wanted me to take the office at Boling Cross, near the Texas line, but I had the traveling fever and wanted to go further south, and he sent me down on the I. & G. N., and the chief there sent me to Herron, Texas. There wasn't much sickness in the air around Herron, but there were just a million fleas to every square inch of sand in the place. Herron was one of the few towns in a very extensive cattle belt, and a few days after I had arrived I noticed the town had filled up with "cow punchers." They had just had their semi-annual round up, and were in town spending their money and having a whooping big time. You probably know what that means to a cow-boy. I was a tenderfoot of the worst kind, and every one at the boarding-house and depot seemed to take particular delight in telling me of the shooting scrapes and rackets of these cow-boys, and how they delighted in making it warm for a tenderfoot. Bob Wolfe, the day man at the depot, told me how at times they had come up and raised particular Cain at the station, especially when there was a new operator on hand. I didn't half believe all their stories, but I will confess that I had a few misgivings the first night when I went to work. One night passed safely enough, but the second was a hummer from the word go. The office was somewhat larger than the telegraph offices usually are in small towns. The table was in the recess of a big bay window, giving me a clear view of the I. & G. N. tracks, while along the front ran the usual long wide platform. The P. & T. C. road crossed at right angles at one end of the platform, and one operator did the work for the two roads. There were two lamps over my desk—one on each side of the bay window—and one was out in the waiting-room. I also kept a lantern lighted to carry when I went out to trains.
All through the early part of the night, I heard sounds of revelry and carousing, accompanied by an occasional pistol shot, up in the town, but about half past eleven these sounds ceased, and I was congratulating myself that my night, would after all, be uneventful. About twelve o'clock, however, there arose just outside the office the greatest commotion I had ever heard in my life. I was eating my midnight lunch, and had a piece of pie in my hand, when I heard the tramp of many feet on the platform. It sounded like a regiment of infantry, and in a minute there came the report of a shot, and with a crash out went one of my lights, a shower of glass falling on the table. Before I could collect myself there came another shot and smash out went the other light. I dropped my pie and spasmodically grasped the table. The only lights left were the one in the waiting-room and my lantern, which made it in the office little better than total darkness. All the time the tramp, tramp on the platform was coming closer and closer, and my heart was gradually forcing its way up in my mouth. In a moment the waiting-room door was thrown open, and with a wild whoop and a big hurrah, the crowd came in. The door between the office and the waiting-room was closed, but that made no difference to my visitors; they smashed it open and swarmed into the office. One of them picked up the lantern, and swaggering over to where I sat all trembling with fear, and expecting that my lights would go out next, raised it to my face. They all crowded around me and one of them gave me a good punch in the ribs. Then the one with the lantern said, "Well, fellows, the little cuss is game. He didn't get under the table like the last one did. Kid, for a tenderfoot, you're a hummer."
Get under the table! I couldn't. I would have given half my interest in the hereafter to have been able to crawl under the table or to have run away. But fright held its sway, and locomotion was impossible.