Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1886 — No Light in the Window. [ARTICLE]

No Light in the Window.

As the train sped along in the night, with drowsy passengers outstretched upon the seats, the conductor was observed frequently peering out of the frosty window into the darkness. The night was black, and nothing could be seen hut a sheen of snow over the shadowv landscape, and yet the conductor shaded his eyes with his two hands and held his face—a wearv-looking face it was too—close to the window pane. “.Looking to see if your girl is awake yet?” inquired the inquisitive passenger with a coarse laugh. - The conductor looked around and shuddered, as with a husky voice he replied simply: “Yes.” And then the inquisitive passenger became garrulous and familiar. He sat down beside®the conductor and poked him in the ribs as he lightly said: “Ah, I see. Going to get married and quit the road. Going to marry a farmer’s daughter. Worth much ?” “She’s worth a million to me.” Further remarks in a similar vein did the passenger make, but the conductor deigned no more replies. Suddenly the whistle of the locomotive gave a long, low moan, the conductor stuck his eves still closer to the window, seemed to fasten his gaze upon some object in the darkness, and then fell bai&in hia Beat witfa a cry of despair upon his lips. ; ’ ■ The passengers gathered round to inquire the nature of the trouble, when the brakeman assisted his chief to rise and led him into the baggage car. The conductor’s face was as white as the snow hanks which fringed the iron roadway, and in his eye was a look of tearless grief. “Poor Sam,” said the brakeman upon his return, “it's a bad night for him. Four weeks his little girl has been iIL Night after night he was at her bed, bat then she got better and he came back to his train. He arranged with his wife that if all was well with the little one she’d display a lighted lamp right in the window of the ’sick room! The boys all knew it, and every night we all looked for the light almost as eagerly as Sam himself. Ho lives by the side of the track back here A few in the window for Sam."— Chicago Herald.