Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1876 — The Outside Passenger. [ARTICLE]

The Outside Passenger.

It was in the old days of stage-coaches, and one of those huge, lumbering vehicles wj»s plowing its way between Boston and Salem in a driving rain-storm, filled inside and outside with a jolly Jam of passengers. * , Among the number ofthe more fortunate insiders was a respectable, bald-headed old gentleman, who seemed to be very solicitous about a lady riding on the roof. Every few minutes he popped out his head, regardless of the rain, and shouted to some one above: “Well, how is she now?” And the answer came: “All right.” . “ Is she getting wet?” inquired the old man. “ No, not much,” was the reply. “ Well, can’t you put something ’round her? ’Twill never do to have her get wet, you know’.” “We’ve gSt everything around her we can get.” “ Haven’t you got an old coat or a rug ?” “ No, not a rag more.” A sympathetic young man, hearing all this, and feeling alarmed for the poor lady out in the storm, inquired of the old gentleman why they didn’t have her ride inside and not out on the roof. “Bless you, there ain’t room!” exclaimed the old man. “Not room! Why I’ll give her my place; it’s too bad!” ’ “Not at all, sir, not at all. rWe couldn’t get her inter this stage anyhow.” Amazed at her prodigious dimensions, the kind young man said: “ Well, sir, if my coat would be of any service to you she may have it;” and, suiting the action to the word, he took off that garment and handed it to the old gentleman. “ It’s almost a pity, sir, to get your overcoat wet, but ” “ Not at all, sir; by no means; pass it up to her.” The coat was accordingly passed up. “ Hqw will that do for her?” “Tip-top! Just the ticket! All right now.” Thus relieved, no further anxiety was manifested about the outside passenger till the stage arrived at the inn, when what was the sympathetic and the gallant young man’s surprise and indignation to find that his nice coat had been wrapped around—not a fair lady of unusual proportions, bqt—a double bsss viol! *i'i —Of 178 Congregational clergymen whose deaths the past year are mentioned by the Congregdlioiudist, eight were above eighty years of age and only six under forty. The average age of the entire number was sixty-four years and nearly six months.