All-
You might enjoy this story which appears in "Railroading in the Eighties...A
Collection of Tales" which was downloaded from the HathiTrust Digital
Library. A search would not mention the CB&Q because the railroad name is
not mentioned in the article but running from Chicago to Mendota through
Riverside and Aurora identifies it as taking place on our favorite
railroad...
Charlie Vlk
A LONG-ARMED FIREMAN
"Yes, " said Mr. Dooflicker, as he drew his chair out on the
porch to the family circle, "I had some wild experiences when I was
a locomotive engineer, I remember one night I was ordered to take
a doctor from Chicago to Mendota in the quickest time possible. To
make my engine lighter I uncoupled the tender and left it in a siding.
When the doctor took a seat on the fireman's box I threw the lever
down in the corner and gave her the steam. Away we jumped like a
scared kangaroo. The doctor's eyes bulged out like a pair of porcelain
door-knobs as we hustled over the prairie toward Riverside.
"What's that- -a post?" asked the doctor as we passed something
in a jiffy.
"It was a coal shed 120 feet long. That's how fast we're going.
"What's that funny looking fringe on our left?" asked the doctor.
"Them's telegraph poles!" answered the fireman as he stopped
half a minute from shoveling coal, just as we slipped through the
shop yards at Aurora.
"Well, we made Mendota, without a stop, in forty-one minutes
just two miles to the minute, and I boiled the coffee in my dinner pail
on the driving boxes. "
"What a long-armed fireman you must have had, pa! "put in Theophilus
Dooflicker, as he looked up from a copy of Aesop's Fables
that lay on his lap.
"How's that?" asked Dooflicker.
"Why, to shovel coal in Aurora from a tender that stood on a side
track in Chicago. "
Dooflicker went into the house. - -Chicago Herald.
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