Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 205, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1914 — OLD GIRL “GOT EVEN” [ARTICLE]

OLD GIRL “GOT EVEN”

HOW LOCOMOTIVE DOPED OUT ITS SCHEME OF REVENGE. Resented Being Assigned to Work Train and Balked With Its Load of Workers on Their Way to the Polls. “If there’s anything that a good, smart, self-respectin’ locomotive don’t like to do it’s to pike around with a work train,” remarked the veteran engineer in a reminiscent mood, “and I know it because of my experience With old 326 some years ago. We had had a trivial accident —caboose jumped the track; little harm done —but the master mechanic got ugly about it and assigned me and the old girl to a work train. Right there I looked for trouble. “Sure enough, the next day the 326 was ordered out on the work train, an’ I went with her. I saw right away that the 326 didn’t take to the worktrain idea nohow. She’d muss an’ puff aroun’ an’ look like a cloudburst in disguise when she was cornin’ down the 4ine. She’d barely make steam enough to get us down the branch an* back, an’ I had all I could do to coax her along and keep her in a mood/ast enough to get us back home. “Finally election day came, and we went down the branch as usual. Our train left early, long before time for the polls to open; but the understandin’ was that we’d knock off work early in the afternoon an’ get the men back in time to vote. There was some three hundred odd went out with us every mornin’ and natchully, it would make some difference whether they got back in time. Well, sir, the 326 was as chipper as an old maid on her weddin’ day goin’ down the line that jnomin’ an’ she went about her work all day with *the steam singin* from her safety valve/ ” ’The old mut is bright an’ cheerful today,* I says to my fireman, ’guess she’s got over her pet an’ will soon be gettln’ back in fast company.’ “A little before three o’clock we knocked off work an* headed for home. That would give ,us ample time to make the 35 miles into town where we all lived, before the polls closed. But as soon as we headed for-home I could observe that the 326 was up to some devilment We couldn’t hold steam enough on her to boil an ‘egg. Even a blind baggage car could see that unless things mended we never could get in before the polls were closed. Yes, sirree, an’ we had only made about eight miles of our journey, when with a sort of malarial fever-an’-ague motion, k-e-r-s-l-app-, I heard somethin’ go in the firebox. Three of her flues give way an’ we had to draw the fire.

"We were stalled out there, 22 miles from the pollin' place until 'seven o'clock. The sad part of it all Was that the master mechanic’s son-in-law was runnin' for sheriff of the county, an* was only beaten by about one hundred and forty-nine majority. If we had gotten in in time most all of the boys would have voted for him, an’ he’d surely have been elected. “Sure. The 326 did it on purpose for revenge on the master mechanic for humblin’ her. She tried to throw suspicion from herself by bein’ chipper the early part of election day, but it only made the thing more plain to me. Haven’t I alius said that engines are 101 per cent human? . She just doped it out for herself an’ handed the master mechanic one good an’ hard.”