Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1885 — A Ticket Seller’s Experiences. [ARTICLE]

A Ticket Seller’s Experiences.

“Ticket selling at n union railway office is not an inspiring occupation, but it is full of opportunities for the study of human nature, and prolific of interesting experiences.” The speaker was a veteran ticket seller. He continued: “One day an old man came up to the, counter w ith an infirmity of purpose apparent He looked like a fifty year old sinnetr glossed over with twenty years of piety. ‘Cap, I want you to do .me a favor,' he said; It’s nineteen years since I heat a conductor On the Madison road out of the fare from Seymour to Indianapolis. I was to have pajd him when 1 got into this depot (it s the same one, I see,) but the old Nick got into me and I jumped off at the freight depot, and shortly afterwards I wenttoMissouri. Tian’t often a man gets religion out there, but when he does it fetches him to right brisk. I jined the Methodist meetin’ house long 'bout ’7O, and ever since then, that stolen ride on the Madison road 1 has beep a lump of fire on my conscience. This is the first time I’ve ever been back here and I want to pay you that fare with interest,” and the grizzly old fellow put down $4.60. The fare was $2.35 then. (It is only $1.75 now.) I never saw money paid out so cheerfully. I esf closed the money in an envelope and forwarded it to an official of the company, with an explanatory note. The latter never acknowledged the receipt of the same, and I very much doubt whether the stockholders received increased dividends therefrom; but still the old man’s conscence was eased. A full grown man, wild with fear that he wouldn’t catch the train that was just pulling out, ran up to my counter, once, frantically slapped down $5.25, the exact fare to Chicago, and called for a ticket. Before I could give him one he started for the train leaving the money in my possession, and I never heard of him afterwards. I suppose he boarded the train and swore he had bought a ticket, but evidently misplaced or lost it. “It is a very common thing for passengers to ask if our clock is right, and whether the clock runs on railroad time or city time. One day a train was delaved waiting for connections. The passengers, one by one, got out of the cars, came to the ticket office and asked why the train didn’t start. “It’s raining,” we answered, and they went back satisfied; finally one countryman came in and told us that the shower was over, and he didn’t see no use ‘waitin’ for the track to dry.* A well dressed young lady was content and thankful for the information that ‘the 1 o’clock train leaves at 12:60.’ She had asked what time the 1 o’clock train departed, and similar querries are of daily occurrence. ‘ls that my train there?’ asked a woman. “Yes.” “Will it back up here to the waiting room ?” “No, you will have to go to it; when we get our new depot built we will have tracks in the waiting room, and automatic hoisters to lift passengers into the coaches, but unfortunately madam, until then, you will have to walk out to your train.” Men and women who are sensible and cool enough about other things sometimes become frantic while traveling. The head of a family who fought all through the war with distinction, lost his head in this depot one day;’ sent his baggage east, hurried his wife on board a north bound train, and himself ran half a square to catch the west bound express. It was twenty-four hours before all of them got back here ready for a new start, and then the old man concluded that the only safe way to travel was to "stay at home.”—lndianapolis News