THE INSPECTOR OF GAS-METERS' STORY
Mine is a tale of the ingratitude of republics. It
is well-nigh thirty years since I was walking by the
Owego and Ithaca Railroad, — a crooked road, not then
adapted to high speed. Of a sudden I saw that a long
cross timber, on a trestle, high above a swamp, had
sprung up from its ties. I looked for a spike with which
to secure it. I found a stone with which to hammer the
spike. But at this moment a train approached, down hill.
I screamed. They heard! But the engine had no power to
stop the heavy train. With the presence of mind of a
poet, and the courage of a hero, I flung my own weight on
the fatal timber. I would hold it down, or perish. The
engine came. The elasticity of the pine timber whirled
me in the air! But I held on. The tender crossed.
Again I was
flung in wild gyrations. But I held on.
"It is no bed of roses," I said; "but what act of
Parliament was there that I should be happy?" Three
passenger cars and ten freight cars, as was then the
vicious custom of that road, passed me. But I held on,
repeating to myself texts of Scripture to give me
courage. As the last car passed, I was whirled into the
air by the rebound of the rafter. "Heavens!" I said, "if
my orbit is a hyperbola, I shall never return to earth."
Hastily I estimated its ordinates, and calculated the
curve. What bliss! It was a parabola! After a flight
of a hundred and seventeen cubits, I landed, head down,
in a soft mud-hole!
In that train was the young U. S. Grant, on his way
to West Point for examination. But for me the armies of
the Republic would have had no leader.
I pressed my claim, when I asked to be appointed
Minister to England. Although no one else wished to go,
I alone was forgotten. Such is gratitude with republics!
