Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 92, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1919 — Moving the Movers [ARTICLE]

Moving the Movers

By J.L. JAMES

J« ' (Oo>yxi<bW | I was kitting in the stuffy little depot of a prairie town. A "norther" was prowling around outside, and whistling mournfully about the eaves. A lone j drummer, two or three farmers, and I myself, were waiting for the local gol Ing west, a swaging combination of one rickety passenger coach, any number of freight cars, and a sputtering little hogback engine. The train made dally trips, but on Its return each afternoon, or midnight. became No. 3 instead of No. I—its1 —its westbound cognomen. The road boasted nf another train,subject, also, to dally change of numbers—No. 2 and No. 4—a real passenger train, due late in the afternoon, and likely to arrive at any time there zfter. On this particular morning. No. 1. known by the boys as “The Great Unlimited." was also late. No one was surprised. The drummer, who had worked the whole town since breakfast. and had then defeated all the local checker champions, was trying to kill time by dozing In a corner, or slapping at some stray fly. '■ I had kept awake watching his antics for a while, then discovered a flirt’d* übeFs nest on a horseshoe-over a door, and for an hour or so divided time between wondering how that individual discovered that a horseshoe brought good luck, and listening to the progress of a domino game In the office, between the agent and the only drayman In town. Suddenly the outer door opened with a crash. A man, a woman, and several children entered, showing by all signs In sight or hearing that they were emigrants, or. as locally termed, “movers.” The woman was carrying, in one hand, an old umbrella, a frying-pan, and a bird cage with a half-grown rabbit in it. In the other hand she had a hatbox. Under one arm was a square, boxlike old clock, and from her wrist hung a bag that bulged with a conglomeration of articles. Behind the woman canie a girl of, perhaps, eight years, carrying another dock of different shape, and an anx-ious-looking gray cat that seemed to have Us attention divided between fear of falling and the desire to eat the rabbit The man carried nothing but a big fat bawling baby of two years, wrapped up in a red and green blanket. Other children followed, some carrying various articles, some crying, others eating peanuts. The children all came into the depot readily enough, but seemed to have no further Idea what was expected of them, and stood gazing at the lurid posters, maps and excursion notices, or •tumbled over seats and suitcases. “Now, set down!” commanded the mother, “and don’t stand around gapin’ like a lot o’ eegiots!" The youthful “movers" broke ranks, some to clamber into seats, others to go on a tour of inspection of everything within range. The mother pushed one clock under a seat, found a lamp bracket for the bird cage, and sat down i with the baby and the other clock in | her lap. having deposited the bag on the seat beside her. Then the clock under the seat began to strike lustily. As it finished the thirty-seventh stroke, the alarm in the clock in her lap went off with such a bang that the baby took fright, and fell off its mother’s lap onto the floor with fresh yells of terror. I stole a look over the top of my magazine, behind which I had been trying to screen myself, and vainly tried to catch the drummer’s eye. but he was gazing out of the window pinching himself to keep from disturbing the peace. The baby, in falling, landed somewhere near the middle of the catch-all bag, and the mother made a plunge for it as if the child were on fire. Then the dock in her lap began striking spe unknown hour. “Now. Elviry," she shrieked, “there you’ve..went and done it! I bet you broke yo’ paw’s mushtash-cup.” The guardian of the household effects had just rearranged the baby, the bag, and the c’ock. when her wandering gaze missed her first-born; a shockheaded boy who had not remained in the waiting room long after the arrival of the family. The baby was at once deposited rfpun the floor, where it bellowed wrathfully. The panic-stricken woman sped for the door, jerked it open and set up a shrill: , “Bus-s-ter f ! You B-u-s-t-e-r! Bus-ter-r-r-r!” winding up with an earflitting whoop. The wind made straight in at the door for the papers .on the agent’s neglected desk. The freight bills flew over the office and disturbed the checker game long enough for the agent to interfere with the remark: “Here, I'll bust you ' Then, as he leaned out of the ticket window far enough to see that the offender was a woman, his chivalry got the better of him, and he toned down a Mt, saying: “Madam. If you don’t shut that door, I won’t have a paper in the house, and they will be suing mt for scaring ail the gorses out of town of chokin’ up the Brazos river.”;. The woman yelled on obliviously for some time, then, muttering, “I bet he gets left by that train,” closed the fioor, and started up the platform in - •• . ♦ •

search of her wandering boy, Buster. Things were getting so tot eresting that the drummer passed me the wink and slunk out of the other door. I followed. “You go one way." said he, “and I'll go the other." We wanted to see the old hen when she lit, and we did. Out at the farther end of the platform, we turned oppo> site corners just as she sailed flown/m her runaway. f He had a cotton hoe handle, and to Its neck, a cord two yards long, he had tied a flop-eared, halfbreed dog. He was’sitting on the platform holding the hoe handle and dog in fishing style, as If be had a bite. “Buster!" yelled the approaching assailant. “Wha’ chu mean runnin' off an' the train about to start?” “Why, maw," drawled the boy, “the train ain’t coine yet, and paw made me leave old Tige out here, while we went to the depot, an’ he’s cold.” “Well, I guess you’ll warm hfrn up holdin’ him here by the handle! I'll kill that fool dog!" she stormed, but aimed a blow at the boy’s head. He dodged readily and still clung to the hoe handle, while the whining dog huddled against the platform with his tail safely between his legs. _ Just then the hog back squealed In the distance, and the warlike mother set off to gather her belongings preparatory to boarding the train. She took down the bird cage, got an arm about one clock, seized the umbrella and bag again, gave vociferous commands to the children to “git them things and git on that train,” and marshaled them in a long line by the track while No. 1 came clattering in. Most of the passengers were In no hurry to get aboard, as No. 1 usually stopped an hour or two—long enough for a drummer to "work” the town and catch the same train for the next. But today, those aboard had been there so long they were anxious to get off, and soon the family phalanx was broken up by the crowd. After the drummer and I had secured seats, we looked out and saw the woman, with the clock and caged rabbit, racing up and down the platform, calling at every jump: “Jerrl-ml-aah-hh!” As this was a new name, we soon figured that the husband Jiad escaped while ahe had been looking for the missing Buster. The drayman emerged, and out of pure good will began to call Jeremiah also. Several boys took up the cry, till the town rang with the chorus of shouts for that namesake of the weeping prophet. Finally, the woman collected her children, clocks, rabbit, etc., In a knot near the train, and gave out in stentorian tones that she would “stay right there till the cows or Jerry came home." “I’m betting on the cows tn that race," remarked the drummer, and then he settled for an hour’s doze before the train started. After a while we were all awakened by a jerk of the train and the renewed cries of the moving woman, who seemed to think the cows were about to win. Jeremiah had not yet appeared, and the engine had finished its switching work and backed up to get the train for another start. Several of the children added to the hubbub with their frantic yells for father, and just as the bell began ringing for the departure of No. 1 the missing hero came around the corner of the depot scowling furiously at the uproarious family. “Can’t a feller git away long enough to have a smoke in peace?” he growled, referring to the two-for-a-nickel cigar protruding from his overgrown beard. He went into the depot agaln fOr the tickets, but the snorting little hog-back began grunting off down the track, leaving the moving-woman the picture of wrath and despair as she clung to bet clocks-and rabbit, groaning: “I knowed it! I knowed it! I. knowed he’d git left I” A new disturbance at the rear of the train now attracted our attention. On investigation, we found Buster, the dog and the hoe. mixed up in a row with the brakeman. The boy and the dog had slipped onto the rear of the train, while others of the family were calling Jerry, “1 tell you. bub," declared the brakeman, “you can’t bring that pup on this car!" “Well, he's on here, ain’t he?” retorted Buster. “Well, take him to the baggage car and express him through! He can’t stay on this car! Where's your ticket?” "Paw’s got it, I reckon.” "Where is he? Hunt him up quick !” The boy fried to leave the dog in the corner by the stove while he went to show the brakeman the holder of the ticket, but the trick failed. The dog followed, and. when assaulted by the brakeman, started howling down the aisle with the hoe catching in the seats arid hitting the passengers. Boy and brakeman tried to stop the fugitive. They caught him at the door just as a passenger who had been out on the platform started to enter and ha(L dodged back in time to let the dog out. The hoe caught in the door. ' . - Just then the train lurched into a Stop at the water tank. Dog, boy, brakeman, and . passenger finally untangled themselves, and Buster, still holding to the hoe handle, remarked, “I guess my paw ain't on here.” “Well, I guess not," snorted the brakeman,, rubbing his shiris, “and, bub. next time you try to take a ride, bring your dad along, |nstead of that pup, and get a ticket, too.” “Hulfr replied Buster, as he alighted with his dog and took up his march back to town, “i beat my paw- this time. Must think I never moved before