Word: firemanning
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Dates: during 1876-1876
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...mought get so's to be off some time Thursday, that's day after to-morrow. Anyhow, stranger, I would advise you to be round then." Well, the long and short is, it was cards and whiskey between the conductor, the station-man, Bill the engineer, the fireman, and myself for most of the next forty-eight hours till Thursday noon, when the conductor said we were all ready to start, if we only had another passenger. In the interval of waiting the conductor read an old Mulligan County Gazette, the engineer and fireman played at stick-knife...
...round it saw a calf on the track. It did not move at our approach, but only stared and continued to graze coolly on the rails and sleepers. The train came to a stop, which was not very hard, considering its rate. Then the conductor and Bill and the fireman spent an hour in trying by "hollering," chasing, forcing, coaxing, pelting, praying, beseeching, and cursing to induce that calf to leave the track. It only meandered slowly along, just a "leetle grain ahead." They all returned finally to the train, Bill furiously swearing, "By the holy horns of Beelzebub...
...last I saw of the wreck the calf had devoured most of the old lady's pickles and peppermints, and had begun on her bonnet; and the conductor, Bill, and the fireman were asking how it happened, and laying the blame on each other. I returned North by another route...