The Conductor's Dream
He had been on the train all day, had met all kinds of people, received all sorts of treatment, punctured all kinds of tickets, shouted “All out!” and “All aboard!” till throat, and head, and hand, and foot were weary. It would be a long while before we would get to another depot, and so he sagged down in the corner of the car to sleep. He was in the most uncomfortable position possible. The wind blew in his neck, his arm was hung over the back of the seat, he had one foot under him, and his knee pressing hard against a brass hinge. In that twisted and convoluted position he fell asleep, and soon began to dream.
It seemed to him, in his sleep, that the car was full of disagreeables. Here was a man who persisted in having a window up, while the rain and sleet drove in. There was a man who occupied the whole seat, and let the ladies stand. Here sat a man smoking three poor cigars at once, and expectorating into the beaver hat of the gentleman in front. Yonder was a burglar on his way to jail, and opposite a murderer going to the gallows. He thought that pickpockets took hi? watch and ruffians refused to pay their fare. A woman traveling alone shot at him a volley of questions: “Say. conductor, how lon before we will eet to the Junction?’’ “Are you sure we have not passed it?” “Do you always stop there?” “What time is it?” Madam, do keep quiet! “None of your impudence!” “How far from here to the Junction?” “Do you think that other train will wait?” “Do you think we will o-et there in time?” “Sav, conductor, how manv miles vet?” “Are you looking out?” “Now. you won’t let me go past, will you?” “Here! conductor, here! Help me out with my carpet-bag. and bandbox, and shawl, and umbrella, and this bundle of sausage and headcheese.” What was worse, the train got going one hundred and fifty miles an hour, and pulling the connecting-rope, it broke, and the cars got off the track, and leaped on again, and the stove changed places with the wood-box. and things seemed going to terrible split and unmitigated smash. The cities flew past. The brakes were powerless. The whistle grew into a fiend’s shriek. Then the train began to slow up. and sheeted ghosts swun=r lanterns alon the track, and the cars rolled into a white depot, which turned out to be a great marble tomb: and looking back to see his passengers, they were all stark dead, frozen in upright horror to the car-backs.
Hearing by the man’s snore, and seeing by his painful look, he was having an awful dream, we tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Conductor! Turn over that seat, and take my shawl, and stretch yourself out, and have a comfortable nap.” “Thank you, sir,” he said, and immediately sprawled himself out in the easiest way possible. He began his slumbers just as an express train glides gracefully out of Pittsburg depot; then went at it more earnestly, lifted all the brakes, put on all the steam, and in five minutes was under splendid headway. He began a second dream, but it was the opposite of the first. He thought that he had just stepped on the platform of his car, and a lady handed him a bouquet fresh from the hot-house. A long line of railroad presidents and superintendents had come to the depot to see him off, and tipped their hats as he glided out into the open air. The car was an improvement on Pullman’s best. Three golden goblets stood at the end, and every time he turned the spigot of the water-cask, it foamed soda-water — vanilla if you turned it one way, strawberry if you turned it the other. The spittoon was solid silver, and had never been used but once, when a child threw into it an orange-peeling. The car was filled with lords and duchi;S AROUND THE TEA-TABLE.
esses, who rose and bowed as he passed through to collect the rare. T::ey ad insisted en paying twice as much as was demanded, reding him ro give naif to the company and keen the rest tor himself. Stopped a few minutes at Jolly Town. Gleeville and Velvet Junction, making connection with the Grand Trunk and Pan-Handle route for Paradise. But when the train halted there was no jolt, and when it started there was no jerk. The track was alwavs clear, no freight-train in the wav. no snow-bank to be shoveled — train always on time. Banks of roses on either side, bridges with piers of bronze, and rlagmen clad in cloth-of-gold. The train went three hundred miles the hour, but without any risk, for all the passengers were insured against accident in a comoanv that was willing to pay four times the price of what any neck was worth. The steam-whistle breathed as sweetly as anv church-choir chanting its ooe.ning piece. Nobody asked the conductor to see his time-table, for the only dread any passenger had was that of coming to the end of his journey.
As night came on, the self-adjusting couches spread themselves on either side; patent bootjacks roiled up and took your boots off; unseen lingers tucked the damask covers all about you. and the porter took your pocket-book to keep till morning, returning- it then with twice what you had in it at nightfall. After a while the train slackens to one hundred and seventy-five miles an hour, and the conductor, in his dream, announces that they are coming near the terminus. More brakes are dropped and they are running but ninety miles the hour; and some one, looking out of the window, says, “How slow we go!” “Yes,” says the conductor, “we are holding up.” Now they have almost stopped, going at only seventy miles the hour. The long line of depot-lamps are flashing along the track. On the platform of the station are the lovers who are waiting for their betrothed, and parents who have come down to greet their children, returned with a fortune, and wives who have not been able to eat or drink since their spouses went away three weeks before. As the cushioned train flashes into the depot and stops, wedding-bells peal, and the gong of many banquets sounds, and white arms are flung about necks, reckless of mistake, and innumerable percussions of affection echo through the depot, so crisp and loud that they wake the conductor, who thought that the boisterous smack was on his own cheek, but finds that he is nothing but a bachelor railroad-man, with a lantern, at midnight getting out into a snow-bank.
Application: Get an easy position when you sleep, if you have any choice between angels and t8o around the tea-table,
gorgons. At midnight, seizing a chair, I ran into the next room, resolving to kill, at the first stroke, the ruffian who was murdering a member of mv household. But there was no ruffian. The sweet girl had, during the day, been reading of St. Bartholomew’s massacre, and was now lying on her back, dreaming it all over again. When dreams find any one lying flat on the back, they cry out, “Here is a flat surface on which to skate and play ball,” and from scalp to toe they sport themselves. The hardest nag in all the world to ride is the nightmare. Many think that sleep is lost time. But the style of your work will be mightily affected by the style of your slumber. Sound Asleep is sister of Wide Awake. Adam was the only man who ever lost a rib by napping too soundly; but when he woke up, he found that, instead of the twelve ribs with which he started, he really had nigh two dozen. By this I prove that sleep is not subtraction, but addition. This very night may that angel put balm on both your eyelids five minutes after you touch the pillow!