Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1893 — .SHE KNEW THE TIME. [ARTICLE]

.SHE KNEW THE TIME.

Marne, * Coal-Mine Mule, Won’t Work After the Whistle Blows. Marne, a mule that drags cars at the breaker of a Lackawanna valley coal mine, keeps closer track of the time than the men, says a Scranton dispatch to the New York World. A minute or so before the whistle blows at noon Mame begins to bray and paw and stamp, but does not refuse to pull the cars. The instant the whistle sounds, however, Marne come to a dead stop, and, no matter in what part of the yard she is working, she cannot be coaxed or forced to pull a pound until after she has had her dinner.

Then she works as faithfully'fts an ox until just before the whistle is going to sound the quitting time blast, when she brays again, but does not paw or stamp as at noontime. She won’t stir a peg after the first toot of the steam whistle, and the driver boy knows better than to try to make her haul the trip of cars by whipping her. The mule keeps such a close track of the time that she has not failed in two years to bray a minute or two before the whistle blew at noon and night. She never brays, the workmen say, except when she thinks it is nearly time to quit work for her dinner or supper. Mame also knows when Sunday comes,, as the workmen ascertained three times last year. It became necessary one Sunday last April to do a little extra work in the yard and the mule was hitchdd to a trip of cars in the morning. She wouldn’t take a step and they had to put her in the barn. On Monday morning Mame went to pulling the cars as usual, and she didn’t flinch a particle in her labors.

They tried her again on a Sunday morning in June, but she wouldn’t even straighten the traces. She worked all right the next day. On a July Sunday the men hitched her to a trip again, but she couldn’t be coaxed to pull an ounce and they came to the conclusion that Mame was a strict Sabbatarian. Since then they have not attempted to make the mule work on Sunday. “I knew Mame before we bought her” said the foreman, “and I told the boy never to hitch her to more than three cars. One day he hitched her to four, and she went ahead all right till she heard the third click, and she wouldn’t budge an inch till the boy unhooked the hind car. Then she went right along as though she was satisfied.

“Mame is always in as big a hurry to get to work in the morning oh every week day as she *is to stop when the whistle blows. If the boy doesn’t go to her stall by the time the machinery has been started in the breaker Mame bites the manger and kicks against the sides of the stall as though she was determined to make him come and harness her. But on Sundays, and whenever the breaker is Idle at other times, Maine makes no fuss in the stall if the boy doesn’t go In to hitch her up."