One night after I had been working there about a month, I went to my
office as usual at seven o'clock. It was a black night threatening a big
storm. The pumper had not gone home as yet and he remarked, that it was
"goin' to be a woild night," but he hoped "the whistlin' av the wind
would be after kaping me company," and with that he jumped on the
velocipede, and off he went.
I didn't much relish the idea of the storm, for I knew the reputation of
Kansas as a cyclone state, and my box-car office was not well adapted to
stand a hurricane. However, I went inside, and after lighting my lamps,
sat down and wrote letters and read, when I was not taking train orders.
This office was kept up solely because it was a convenient place to
deliver orders to freight trains at night when they stopped for water.
About twelve-thirty in the morning my door opened suddenly, and a man
stepped quickly in. I was startled because this was almost the only man
except the pumper and the train crews that had been there since I came.
Once in a while a stray tramp had gone through, but this man was not a
tramp.
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