SABATIS,
Me., Nov. 11 (Special) – When car 18 slid up the main street of
Sabatis and finally anchored in the driving rain and slush by the
co-operative steps at 6.20, Thursday night, a good number of
passengers for Lewiston furled their umbrellas and boarded the car
with a rush. Two people bent on seeing Old Kentucky in Music Hall; a
number of day laborers 8 miles from home and supper; some Germans who
intended to meet their brethren in the Shillerverein in Central
Block; and two students were among the party, to say nothing of the
dog – a black and white purp with solemn mein and melancholy eyes,
whose cognomen “Sport” was as belying as the name Lillian when
tacked on a plump brunette. Everyone settled himself for an immediate
start, when the motorman grabbed the lever and started for a lunch
room, and the conductor, with the remark that he “shouldn't start
for fifteen minutes sure,” slumped after him. The student slammed
his Latin grammar shut. “Ain't yergoin'?” said somebody. “Goin'
home and go ter bed,” growled the student.
The
man with the dinner pail started out to do a forgotten errand and the
car door stuck. He struggled silently till he felt something violent
was expected of him, when he remarked without a show of enthusiasm,
“Damn the door.” And with that the jeers of the passengers proved
the open sesame.
The
man in the soft black felt passed his pocket piece across to the man
in the brown felt, who carried off a hunk, and both ignored the City
Hall motto that gentleman will not, others must not --. The purp rose
and humped himself against the seat with a conscious air when any one
moved. A kid on the platform suggestively shouted “all aboard”
and another swung the go-ahead signal with a white lantern. The man
with the burr of the Teutonic race under his tongue remarked on the
apparent appetite of the motorman, while the quiet man broke his
silence to move an adjournment. The car finally rolled out of the
village at 7.15. The trolley buzzed and whined on the wire. The
flames danced overhead in glints of diabolical fire and flashed
peppermint greens and goblin blues on the snow. The power came in
jerks that made the teeth of the purp rattle like castanets. Four and
five lunges were made at every grade, and six and seven times did the
car go back to gain impetus at the foot of Thorn Hill, which
retreating, the man with the burr in his speech said was like the
Spaniards. In an interval of inky blackness while the power was off,
a cheery orchestra man piped up on the “Georgia Campmeeting.” The
car finally reached Lewiston at 8.35. The theatre-goers looked blue,
the vereiners had missed their meeting, the purp gingerly picked his
way through the icy mud on Lisbon street, and sighed for a warm
Sabatis fireside – and the slush on the rails was at the bottom of
it all.
Lewiston
Evening Journal, Lewiston, Maine, Friday, November 11, 1898
