"I suppose it seemed a wonderful thing to reach Albany in fifteen hours," remarked Steve.
"It was like a fairy tale," his father answered. "To estimate the marvel to the full you must think how long it would have taken to drive the distance, or make the journey by water. Therefore the Boston officials burned their spermaceti candles in triumph; and the next day, when the Albany hosts returned to Boston with their guests, they symbolized the onrush of the world's progress by bringing with them a barrel of flour which had been cut, threshed, and ground only two days before, and put into a wooden barrel made from a tree which was cut down, sawed, and put together while the flour was being ground. This does not seem to us anything very astounding but it was a feat to stop the breath in those days."
"And what did they do with the flour?"
"Oh, that evening when they reached Boston the flour was made into some sort of bread which was served at the dinner the Boston men gave to their visitors."
"I wonder what they would have said if somebody had told them then that sometime people would be going from Boston to New York in five hours?" the lad observed.
"I presume they would not have believed it," was the reply. "Nor would they have been able to credit tales of the great numbers of persons who would constantly be traveling between these two great cities. At that time so few people made the trip that it was very easy to keep track of them; and that they might be identified in case of accident the company retained a list of those who went on the trains. At first this rule worked very well, the passengers being carefully tabulated, together with their place of residence; but later, when traffic began to increase and employees began to have more to do, those whose duty it was to make out these lists became hurried and careless and in the old railroad annals we read such entries as these:
"'Woman in green bonnet; boy; stranger; man with side whiskers,' etc."
A peal of laughter broke from Stephen.
"Railroad officials would have some job to list passengers now, wouldn't they?" he said. "We should all just have to wear identification tags as the men did during the War."
His father acquiesced whimsically.