Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1915 — AT LANTANA STATION [ARTICLE]

AT LANTANA STATION

By A. WEINSTOCK.

(Copyright.) Ferguson had been at Lantana less than a week when he made hie first rigorous roar to the chief dispatcher for relief. The solitude and isolation were making him a nervous wreck, he complained; and if relief were not forthcoming mighty quickly, they would have to remove him from the station in a' strait-jacket The chief dispatcher treated the matter face* tlously, but promised Ferguson a more congenial assignment as soon as a vacancy occurred. Lantana, on the International, Shoshone & Qulf railroad, was a box-car station perched among the clouds of the Declez range. To the esthetic the view from Lantana was soul-satis-fying. Snow peaks were transformed by the alchemy of the morning sun into an effulgent glare of towers and minarets, and leagues upon leagues of steep declivity merged into- fir-cov-ered slopes that sank away into the haze and were lost to sight in the lower world. Ferguson was not esthetic, and to him Lantana was desolation, loneliness, a foretaste of perdition and the place that God forgot. Ferguson wa6 the product of a metropolis. For him all that "was great and good and beautiful in the universe —all that he thought worth striving so to be found in New York. The raging medley of incessant sound that assailed the senses of an outlander in a great city was sweetest music in his ears, and the bewildering kaleidoscope of motion in the busy streets was as the painter’s masterpiece to him. He longed for it with an aching heart, and his brain rebelled at the magnificent distances of the Declez range. Ferguson’s social Instinct was highly developed. He lived for and in companionship. In his happier days his friends had dined with him, and his cronies had smoked his cigars. There was no wife or babies, and the affection men usually bestow on their families Ferguson showered upon his friends. But at Lantana Ferguson had no friends. There were no restaurants, no saloons, no hotels, no theaters. There was nothing; only a box car, in one corner of which he slept; in another was the sheet-iron stove on which he cooked his meals, and in the center of the car was a table to which was attached the telegraph equipment. Over all was spread a thick laygr of dust, and suspended from the ceiling were weird festoons of cobwebs. With picturesque and fluent profanity Ferguson cursed his environment. With added fervor he cursed the circumstances that had driven him to Lantana. And finally, with a vigor that jarred his box-car home, h© cursed the telegraph cdmpany, which he blamed for his misfortune. For one-half of the 45 years of his life he had served them faithfully. Then the fate which overtakes so many telegraphers befell him. His fingers lost their cunning, and he could no longer form the Morse characters with speed and accuracy. From continuous use, the delicate muscles of the fingers and wrist had become paralyzed. He lost his grip, and the telegraph company dispensed with his services. Starvation in New York, or a job at Lantana! Which should it be? He had chosen Lantana. And now this product of the complex life, this hothouse plant whose fibers and tendrils were intertwined among the surging hordes of humanity in a great city, was transplanted to a harsh and primitive soil, and was suffering a withering blight in consequence. Ferguson vainly regretted his choice. Starvation in New York would have been the very apex of delight in contrast to the oppressive silence, the vastness and the emptiness of Lantana. Ferguson prepared his., own meals, the one Indispensable utensil being a can-opener; he cleaned the dishes and dried them in the sun, washed his own clothes, mended socks, smoothed the blankets on his bed, and swept the floor.. Then, in a wild passion, he revolted at the blacking of his own boots, and filing up the chief dispatcher, demanded immediate refief. “Fefguson insists upon being relieved, ** reported the chief dispatcher to Division Superintendent Jenkins. “He n"gs at me from early morning Until late at night I suggest sending him relief, if—” “Do you think Ferguson will desert his post?” interrupted the superintendent “Oh, no,” said the chief dispatcher. “He’s too old a hand at the business to play a trick like that He will stay until he’s relieved, no matter how much he dislikes Lantana;”. “Weil,” growled the superintendent “we can’t relieve him just now"’ On the International, Shoshone & Gulf, between Rawdon and Lantana, and about a quarter of a mile from the latter place, wa3 a sharp curve in the road at a point which an enthusiastic tourist, inspired by the beauty of the view, had Gabriel’s Balcony' The rough and unfeeling trainmen on the mountain division ridiculed the mellifluous title —and accepted it. On the left of the track beetling cliffs arose abruptly. On the right, and only a few yards from the rails, was an almost perpendicular declivity of 40 feet emerging Into a slope that sank away as steep as the roof of a houae ttntilJt disappeared in the ha*y distance Car below. w «

On the town-grade every engineer took the curve at balcony respectfully and prayerfully, with his brakes Clinched and his soul in his eyes. Ferguson’s duties at Lantana were not onerous, and be wandered up and down the track in search of some slight occupation as an antidote for the pdlson of homesickness coursing /through bis veins. His first view from Gabriel’s Balcony fascinated him. Almost unconsciously he picked up a rock and dropped it from the edge of the precipice. It thudded against the rocky slope after its 40-foot drop, bounded, rolled and rebounded on its swift journey, gaining velocity as it progressed, until it darted out of sight far below. “That’s great,” murmured Ferguson. As the days passed, the fascination of Gabriel’s Balcony strengthened and, with its growth, Ferguson’s desire to leave Lantana diminished.' His entreaties for relief ceased; for which the chief dispatcher was duly grateful. All the time that could be spared from his trifling duties at the station was spent at Gabriel’s Balcony. To hurl rocks from the brink of the precipice devaipped into a mania. Like morphine, the dose must be taken in ever-increasing quantities to satisfy the craving.

The sight of small rocks diving down the incline was no longer satisfying to Ferguson. Each rock must be larger than its predecessor. Bowlders that taxed his strength to the utmost to poise on the edge of the precipice were sent crashing down the slope, followed by satellites of slate and earth they had loosened in their flight. Ferguson wondered vaguely whither these rushing boulders hastened so eagerly, and meant some day to mount a massive rock and journey down with it, to learn their destination. And one day there came the Voice just as Ferguson bad started a monstrous rock down the inchne. “What if that had been the Eagle Limited?” the Voice suggested. “What’s that?”-asked Ferguson, not comprehending. No answer. Ferguson glanced up and down the track. There was no one in sight.

“Huh!” said Ferguson. “Mighty funny.” and resumed his absorbing oocupation.

Aa he sent another sphere of granite catapulting from .the Balcony, Ferguson heard the voice again. "What if that had been the Eagle Limited?” With eyes staring at the fast vanishing rock, he answered; “Yes, that would be exciting.” It Was a friendly Voice, and it often came to cheer his heartrending loneliness. Ferguson pleaded with it to stay and share his quarters in the box car. And the Voice knew New York—his New York —and soon a bond of eternal brotherhood was sealed With tears of joy on Ferguson’s part for the presence of this unexpected comrade in the wilderness.

Not many days after the Voice had first, made its presence known.it spoke long and earnestiy to Ferguson, and as he harkened, the light of wild anticipation gleamed in his eyes. From under the couch in the corner he drew a crowbar, wrench, and sledgehammer. These he carried to Gabriel’s Balcony, and, according as the Voice commanded, he wielded the tools, singing as he toiled. When the work was done, the Voice and Ferguson waited impatiently. The Limited came to its fate with no warning. From the verge of Gabriel’s Balcony it plunged, coach trailing coach. Rocks and earth detached from the precipice pursued it as it fell. Down the steep incline rolled twisted metal and splintered timbers, enshrouded in an ever-swelling mass of rock and soil. It grew into a roaring avalanche, and as it struck the timbered slope it added trees of century growth to its appalling bulk. It was no mean death that Ferguson had wrought for passengers and crew, and no man may say, in truth, where they found sepulcher. At Gradyville, Superintendent Jenkins ordered out the wrecking train. The Limited had left Rawdon on time, but was hours overdue at Lantana, and repeated efforts to gain a response from Ferguson were fruitless. The wrecking crew found Ferguson seated on a huge bowlder where the 1., S, and G. track made the turn at Gabriel's Balcony, gibbering incoherently. The impalpable spirit of the mountain, the immensity of space, had crushed him with its mystery. It was the fertile imagination of Superintendent Jenkins that evolved the landslide theory for newspaper consumption, to account for the absolute disappearance of the Eagle Limited. Jenkins knew railroading from a fishplate on a spur to the manipulation of stocks in Wall street, from the construction <4l a shoo-fly track around the debris of a wreck to the concoction of a shoo-fly tale for the reporters, and he handled the situation with masterly resourcefulness. And the Voice came no more to Ferguson.

Probable FI ret Use of Mortar. The use of lime as binding material for mortar originated in the remote past.. It is probable that sdmesavages when using limestone roeks to confine their fire noticed that the stones were changed by the action of the heat. A passing shower may hare slaked the lime to a paste, and they discovered that the paste was smooth and sticky and was a better materia’ than clay to fill the crevices in their rode dwellings. From this discovery it was but a step to add sand to the paste in ordor JO produce a mortar.