UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY
A SECTION-HAND ON THE UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY
It cost five cents to go from Council Bluffs to Omaha in the summer of 1892. That was the toll of a foot passenger in crossing the bridge which, spanning the Missouri, joined the two cities. It was a reasonable toll, I dare say, and paid probably no more than a fair return on the capital invested in the bridge, but it was five cents and I had only one. One dingy copper coin, with its Indian head and laurel wreath, was all that was left of the savings from my last job. I must, therefore, find work in Council Bluffs, and the letters which had been waiting for me in Omaha must wait a little longer. But I felt fagged, for I had reached the end of a six days’ walk of some 200 miles, so I took a seat on a bench in the shade in the public square near a fountain, whose play was soothing in the heat of a midsummer afternoon.
I thought regretfully then of the farmer with whom I dined at noon that day, and with whom I might have remained as a hired man. Besides, I remembered with some concern two men on foot who met me on the outskirts of Council Bluffs.
“Where are you from, partner?” one of them asked, with some bluster in his manner.
“I’ve just come down through the State from Algona,” I replied.
“Is there any work out the way you came?”
“Lots of it,” I assured him.
“Well, there ain’t none the way you’re goin’. Me and me pal is wore out lookin’ for a job in Omaha and Council Bluffs.”