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Westinghouse Friction Draft Gear

The Westinghouse Air Brake Co.,

When Writing to Advertisers Please Mention The Railway Conductor.

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VOL. XIX.

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA, MAY, 1902.

A Political Ghost.

BY A. A. A.

I had always believed that, "Between two evils choose the less," was a safe rule to follow; so, when Jack told me it was a choice between a boarding house and a tenement, I chose the tenement.

We had never tried boarding but once since we were married, and that three months' experience had proved to me that no manner of living could be more objectionable.

I sadly disliked to leave our cosy little cottage at Hallington, but Jack had been promoted to the "Back Up" on the main line, and I concealed my apprehensive forebodings, as I did not wish to lessen his joy over his success.

His train would lay over at Weston, and as the rules required all trainmen to live within the proscribed limits traversed by the call boy, we would have to live in South Weston near the depot. On the third day of his absence he wrote me that the only arrangement he could make was either to board at the railroad hotel or to take rooms in a tenement. As before stated, I immediately wrote advising him to take the rooms. wrote me in answer the only rooms he could secure inside the limits were in an old stone house, which was said to be haunted, but that I would have as next door neighbors Jennie White and Edith Duncan.

He

"If you think you can brave the ghost, little woman, come," he wrote; "if not I'll manage to survive the sole leather, pastry and midnight attacks of the bed brigands for a short time till something better offers."

No. 5.

As was natural, I thought I would be willing to endure any inconvenience to save Jack encountering that evil again, so I packed a few necessaries, left the cottage in care of the washwoman and hastened to Weston.

Jennie and the children met me at the train and gave me the full particulars of the ghost story while we walked the short distance to the house.

The story ran that years before the owner of the house, at that time a young man, had been defeated in a local election, and had taken the matter so much to heart that he had committed suicide by jumping into the river at the back of the house. It is reported that at each election of the kind now, he roves over the house, which has since passed into alien hands and become a mere tenement.

By this time we had arrived at the house. I saw nothing unusual about it from the outside. It was one of those old stone houses, so often seen along the Atlantic coast. It was three stories high, with small, many paned windows and wide balconies. Great basswood and maple trees rasped their branches upon the roofs, and vines, rose trees and other perennial plants lay in tangled confusion on either side as they usually do around old manor houses which have fallen into the hands of that class of tenants. Heavy shutters, barred with iron, swung loosely, mostly from one hinge, from the small windows. The walls appeared to be several feet thick, and altogether it must have been a most impregnable place in its prime.

To add to its unsavory reputation an elderly bachelor had been found dead on the third floor only two years ago. Jennie reassured me though by relating her own experience. She had been there a year and five months, she told me, and had not been disturbed by anything more unnatural than rats, which were so thick that in spite of all her devices to rid the house of them, they would carry off whole pies and loaves of bread if she put her victuals in the kitchen cupboard over night.

I own I felt much afraid to risk staying there, but I thought I could be as brave as Jennie, at least, until we could do better. Jack would be at home every night, and one of Jennie's or Edith's children could be with me during the day.

As soon as we had laid aside our wraps and I had had a cup of tea, Jennie took me on "a tour of inspection," or rather to look at our rooms.

Three suites opened out upon the front veranda of the second story. At one end was Abe White's and at the other end Will Duncan's, while Jack had engaged the one between them. It consisted of only two rooms, a large one at the front with a door and window opening out upon the veranda, and a small one across the hall at the back.

I saw

at once the impracticability of even the lightest housekeeping, as the front room was only large enough for a bedroom, while the back room would hold scarcely more than a portable bath tub.

Before Jack got in that night, I had found that there was a tolerable restaurant across the street, and I persuaded the janitor's wife to let us breakfast with her, so by taking two meals a day at the restaurant we should be able to get along very well. I had one set of bedroom furniture and the bathroom furniture sent up and had the other things, which had been shipped the day before, rebilled for Hallington. In the course of a few days we were "running schedule time," as Jack says.

Nothing unusual occurred for two months, and I had quite overcome my fear of the place. In fact, I quite admired the rooms, even if I did not their

uncanny history. They were deeply wainscoated with a rich dark wood, and contained deep, old-fashioned fireplaces, which were now fitted with modern grates. Two great closets were sunken into the walls on either side of the grates in all of the suites It was one of the rooms which contained a grate that Jennie used for her kitchen; and one of these closets filled with shelves served her as a kitchen cupboard.

I only used mine as a wardrobe, but the doors were so curiously carved that they were an ornament in themselves.

I mourned because I was forced to use my modern set of furniture in the dear old room. Jack declared it was an ideal tenement, for the thick walls prevented the penetration of the sound of the neighbor's piano and crying babies, which would disturb his rest after a hard run.

I was seldom very lonely for Jennie and Edith took advantage of the quiet of my room every day to prevent the older children awakening the babies. At almost any hour during the afternoon, a chance caller would find Edith's fat baby boy or Jennie's sweet baby girl asleep upon my bed, while I manipulated the pins of my lace machine.

Edith and I were looking forward anxiously to the twenty-ninth of October. Both having been born and reared in the same town, we were going to seize the opportunity of visiting our birthplace together. Will Duncan was conductor on the work train, and it would change headquarters on the twentysixth, so we intended going while he was making arrangements for her to come where the train was.

On the twenty-fourth Jack said, "be ready, Becky, when I get in tonight, and we will run up town and buy the mater a present. There will be extra work from tomorrow until the thirtieth, so I may not have a chance again to go with you before you go home."

All day I planned to buy first one thing and then another, then would decide to let Jack choose; but the present was destined not to be purchased. That afternoon, when the call boy came to call Abe White, he said old Huldah had

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