Trail Tales Part 2

In many sections the people have nothing but sagebrush for firewood.

The whole tree is used, special stoves, or heaters, being made to accommodate the whole plant. It is gathered in the following manner: Two immense T-rails of railroad iron are laid side by side, one inverted, and securely fastened together; to the ends of these are hitched two teams of horses or mules, which pulling parallel to each other, are driven into the standing fairy forests and the swaths of fallen timber show the track of this unnatural storm. Its roots have such slight hold on the soil that it easily falls. Wagons and pitchforks follow, and the whole of the felling is hauled untrimmed to the home for hand-axing if too large; and it is all burned, top and root. There is so much vegetable oil in this queer plant that it makes a fine and very quick fire, green or dry.

After a summer rain there is no aromatic perfume surpa.s.sing that of the odor of sagebrush filling the newly washed air. The mountaineer who has had to make a trip East gladly opens his window, as his train pushes back into the habitat of these aromatic shrubs, to get an early whiff of the health-laden, sage-sweetened atmosphere of the beloved Westland and homeland.

THE IRON TRAIL

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn In their houses of self-content; There are souls like stars that dwell apart In their fellowless firmament.

There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths Where highways never ran.

But, let me live by the side of the road And be a friend to man.

--Sam Walter Foss.

A RAILROAD SAINT IN IDAHO

The "railroad saint" was a locomotive engineer. His life was ever an open book, yet while careful and almost severe in his personal religious habits, he did not criticize the manners of his a.s.sociates.

He simply let his well kept searchlight shine.

Though born in Ohio, his boy life was spent mainly in Nebraska, when it was just emerging from the ragged swaddlings of rough frontierdom; and during his young manhood he lived in Wyoming, at the time when men "carried the law in their hip-pockets," as he graphically expressed it.

Early becoming an employee of the Union Pacific, he was a permanent portion of its westward intermountain extension, and he did his life's work among the scenic cliffs and clefts of the picturesque crags and corrugated canons of the wrinkled ridges in the Rocky and the Wahsatch ranges. Opportunities for literary education were very limited to one so engaged, and little more than what was absolutely necessary to the railmen did he receive. But he was not ignorant by any means. In later years he read extendedly and with careful discrimination. He had a poet's soul, but was not visionary.

His mother had been a careful and sensible Christian. The indelible impress she left upon him was like to that given by Jochebed to her son Moses. He never wholly escaped from her hallowed influence, although he descended into vicious living and became a notorious and blatant blasphemer, sceptic, and drunkard.

Once when attending a national convention of railway engineers in an Eastern city he noticed a little flower boy vainly attempting to dispose of his roses. Our engineer (who always had a feeling for the "other fellow") paid the lad for all he had left and directed him to carry them to the hotel where the delegates were stopping, and give them to the ladies in the parlor. This act was repeated on successive days. It attracted attention finally, and one of the delegates asked him if he were a Christian. Characteristically he blurted out: "Do you see anything about me that indicates it? If so, I will take it off at once. Why do you ask such a question?"

"Because," said the questioner, "your kindness to that pale-faced little flower boy makes people think you are."

"Nothing at all queer about that," was the quick reply. "Common humanity should dictate such deeds. If I myself wanted a favor, I'd not go to any Christian for it; I'd rather tackle a bartender or a gambler."

"Well, Dr. T----, of the Methodist Church, has heard of you," remarked his questioner, "and he says he would like to meet you for an hour or so before you leave the city."

"But I've no desire to meet any preacher, though if it will afford the gentleman any pleasure, I will gladly do it for that reason and no other. What do you suppose he wants?"

The intermediary arranged a time of meeting, and after introducing the men, left the "eagle eye" in the pleasant study of the minister, a pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. After a few minutes of easy conversation, the minister abruptly cut all Gordian knots and said: "Mr.----, are you a Christian?"

"No, sir, not so you can notice it."

"Why are you not?"

"Why should I be?"

"It gives to every one who embraces true religion a better, broader, worthier view and conception of life."

"Wherein, mister?"

"It puts purpose into his life and interprets the end to which he is tending."

Then came up from the keen intellect-quiver of our Rocky Mountain engineman all the stock phrases, replies, and arguments of Voltaire, Rousseau, Ingersoll, and others whose writings he knew perfectly.

With Christian and cultivated patience the minister listened and then said with captivating and sympathetic tenderness: "But, my dear sir, that is all speculation on the part of those scholarly and eloquent men whom you quote so accurately. They know no better. The religion of Jesus is not speculation; it is practical knowledge. Would not you, sir, like to know personally as to its truth?"

"Yes, but how can I?"

His foot had been taken in the snare of the wise trapper.

Said the preacher: "You can; and this is the way. As you leave this city for your return to the West, get a cheap New Testament; indeed, here is a copy; please accept it. Tear it in two in the middle, retaining only the four Gospels--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Read them; you will by yourself and by this means find the way to perfect knowledge."

He of the throttle, hungry for the deepest knowledge, did as directed and advised.

Back to his cab and engine he went, under the deepest conviction. Yet he declared that he needed no extraneous a.s.sistance to be as good as any Christian; Jesus he considered a superfluity, and said so. The negative influences of the atheistic authors yet warped him. He said: "I dare any of you to watch me. I can and will be as upright as any Christian on earth." But after a short time of exemplary conduct, he would wake up some morning only to discover to his hearty disgust that he had been on an extended period of dissipation. Later he would attempt another straightening-up and try to "be good" without the necessary becoming so, only to fall again and harder than before.

Once, after such humiliating debauch, he entered a saloon which contained the only barber shop in the village, the railway division point where he had his "layovers" for regular rest. He sat down for his daily shave. It was the morning after pay-day among the employees, and, as he stated it to the writer, "everybody, even the barber, had been drunk." Cigar stumps, empty bottles, cards, and other plentiful signs of the previous night's carousals covered the floor with baccha.n.a.lian litter. Lying there, eyes shut, an Armageddon was taking place on the stage of his perturbed soul. His story is this:

"While lying there that morning a voice said to me, 'You are not a square-dealer.' I opened my eyes on the barber, only to see a bloated face with impa.s.sive and mute lips; he had said nothing, I could easily see. I closed my eyes again, only to hear, 'You do not treat me as you would a gentleman.' I now knew that the voice was that of an unseen person, and I replied mentally but really. 'Who are you, and what do you want?' 'I am Jesus, whom you deny without having known, and condemn without having attempted to prove. You have been saying all the while you can succeed without my a.s.sistance, and you know you have failed every time. All I want is a chance in your life that I may prove myself to you.' Then I replied, 'If this is what you want, just come in and we will talk it over.' He then came in never to go out again. I went to my little shack-room and, locking the door, took out of a little old hair-covered trunk a Bible my mother had given me; it had lain there for thirty long years untouched. I opened it and read a while and then got down on my knees to pray. What I said was about like this: 'Lord, if it is really the Lord who was talking to me (I have my doubts), you know I am a man of my word, and you can trust me.

I want to make you a proposition: I'll do the square thing by you if you'll do the same by me. Amen!'"

"This," said he, "was the beginning of the struggle for rest to my soul; and I found it."

An incident leading to his immediate, possibly ultimate safety, was a conversation in a saloon. It does not always transpire that we are benefited by the act of the talebearer, but in this case it was highly salutary. One of his engineer friends, drinking at the bar, said: "Never fear about H----. He will soon get over all this and be along with us as usual."

Hearing it, he became very righteously indignant and said: "By the grace of G.o.d, never! I'll go up to the church my wife attends and join with her, and when they know I am a church member they'll let me alone." He did so at once. He was saved. He lived for many years, always happy, always helpful, and without fear he ascended the snowy hills of old age, with their enveloping mists.

Afflicted with a creeping paralysis, he lingered long, ever cheerful, and interested in his friends, to whom he sent many messages. To his brothers of the Odd Fellows he sent this message: "Boys, I'll not see you any more. I am just like a boy at Christmas Eve, who with stocking hung up, is anxious for daylight. The shadows have come over me. My stocking is hung up by the Father's fireplace and I am almost impatient for the morning. I haven't the remotest idea what I will get, but I am sure it will be something good." A few days before his translation he was visited by one of his old-time railway a.s.sociates, who said to him: "H----, you are now up against the real thing, according to your belief; and it looks to us the same, just as if you would have to go some one of these days. How does it seem? What is it like?"

Looking at the questioner lovingly, the dying man said, "Charley, you've worked for the railway company a long time, and never had many promotions, have you?"

"Yes, about twenty years--and no promotions."

"Well, Charley, suppose there'd come to you to-day a wire from headquarters saying there's a big promotion waiting for you on your arrival, and at the same time a pa.s.s for your free transportation. How do you think that would seem to you?"

"My soul, but that'd be fine," said he.

"Well, Charley, that's just my case exactly," said the radiant man.

"I've been working for G.o.d and his company for about that same length of time and never had much promotion so far as I could see, and now I have a summons direct from the glory land telling me there's a big advancement for me, and it sounds mighty good."

He was dressed for the wedding, the Christmas morning, or whatever awaited him, and was anxious that the couriers of the King should come. When the moment came the old engineer's headlight was undimmed, the switch signals showed green, and when he called for the last board at the home station the signal came back: "All's well; come on in."

He had received his coveted promotion.

AN UNUSUAL KINDNESS