Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1885 — Another Missouri Horror. [ARTICLE]

Another Missouri Horror.

The night express on the Missonri Pacific Kailroad was boarded at Parsons, Kansas, by an old lady carrying three large, black baskets and an oilcloth grip. She found herself" in the smoking car, and when interviewed by the conductor demanded a sleeper. ,1 “I'm on the route to St. Louis to see my darter Jane," she said, “an’ Pm goin’ to git there'in mod derate shape an’ style. I don't git to ride on the keers only once in an while ockasionally, an’ what's the damage?” “Two dollars.” "Take my things right alopg and head me for the bedroom.” i So the old lady was piloted safely over the yawning chasms between the swaying coaches, and at last was dumped bag, baggage, and bundles on the broad plush seat of a Pullman car. “Where’s the landlord?” she asked surveying the partially curtained apartment with reverential awe. The approach of the porter, however, answered all practical purpose, “Gracious, how the keers rattle!” she said, “but they don’t jolt half as much as the front eend. Do you think there’s any danger of my—don’t pester them baskits, young man. I’ve got some apples an’ pie an’ fixens’ in ’em for Jane. Jane’s my darter, she lives in St Louis, an’ Paddock, her man, he keeps a store.” The porter here explained that it would he a necessity to remove the articles while making up the berth. “Well handle ’em mighty keerful. Gracious how the keers rattle! You don’t suppose there’s any danger of ’em—you—you don’t suppose there is, is there?” —• “Suppose what, marm?” “Why, that air—but pshaw! nuthin’.” And the old lady dived into a large hand-bag and fished out p bottle of camphor, and sprinkled her-immediate vicinity with the perfume. The last traveler was stowed away for the night; the last curtain wa3 drawn across the section, and the low rumble of the train through forest and clearing, farm and valley, was only broken by the ' occasional snort of a heavy sleeper. Miles miles of the dreary solitude of Missonri night scenery were left in the distance; the train went whizzing by small, unimportant stations, and now halted at some tank and took in solid and liquid refreshment for the bloodless horse. But why should it now slow up in the dreariest of all the' many dreary, unforbidding places along the road? What illlooking stranger was that who just entered the car and passed down the aisle between the slumberers with a scowling face stamped with a sinister brand? “Crack!” Surely a pistol shot! “I knew it! I’ve been looking for this sort of thing • for the last six months!” shouted a Kansas City drummer, diving for the aisle and getting there with both both feet. “I surrender!” “Crack!” - “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord —besides that I haven’t got a pistol,” echoed a muffled voice from the sepulcher of an upper berth. “Crack!” A rather shapeless female form, rqbed in white, and a rufled night-cap, kjranded into the aisle, and rushed at the Kansas City drummer with open mouth and a discrepancy of teeth. As fled she tripped, recovered herself, and plumped Bquarely into the drummer’s arms. “Oh, save me from the Jim boys, Landlord, save me!” she shrieked," save me for my darter’s sake!” “Crack 1” “Throw up your hands!” said the drummer, trying to squirm away. She complied rapidly, and he slipped put on to the rear platform. The train was just starting away from a ghostly tank looming up against the rosy-hued horizon of approaching day. The conductor entered the car from the other end. “Crack!” He dodged into the smoker’s apartment and peered out along the aisle where the old lady was “sashaying” and balancing before the curtained sections in a stately, singlehanded minuet. Capped and undressed heads were thrust without the curtains, and white, anxious faces looked up and down the aisle. “Any train robbers'at your end?” shouted the drummer above the din of the howling Parsons woman. "Not any down my way,” answered the conductor, stepping out in front of the old lady’s berth, c “Thunder and Mars! What’s this? A soda fountain?” “Crack!” “Why, for the land’s sake f ” broke in the Parson’s womap,” “es that ain’t my yeast, six bottles of it, all fer Jane,quid busted, busted, busted. I was afreered all along that the rattle of the keers would get the stuff a workin’ ” Drake's Traveler’s Magazine.