CANNIBALISM IN THE CARS --[Written abort 1867.]
I visited St.Louis lately, and on my way West, after changing cars at Terre Haute, Indiana, a mild, benevolent-looking gentleman of about forty-five, or maybe fifty, came in at one of the way-stations and sat down beside me.We talked together pleasantly on various subjects for an hour, perhaps, and I found him exceedingly intelligent and entertaining.
When he learned that I was from Washington, he immediately began to ask questions about various public men, and about Congressional affairs; and I saw very shortly that I was conversing with a man who was perfectly familiar with the ins and outs of political life at the Capital, even to the ways and manners, and customs of procedure of Senators and Representatives in the Chambers of the national Legislature.Presently two men halted near us for a single moment, and one said to the other:
"Harris, if you'll do that for me, I'll never forget you, my boy."My new comrade's eye lighted pleasantly.The words had touched upon a happy memory, I thought.Then his face settled into thoughtfulness--almost into gloom.He turned to me and said, "Let me tell you a story; let me give you a secret chapter of my life--a chapter that has never been referred to by me since its events transpired.Listen patiently, and promise that you will not interrupt me."I said I would not, and he related the following strange adventure, speaking sometimes with animation, sometimes with melancholy, but always with feeling and earnestness.
THE STRANGER'S NARRATIVE
"On the 19th of December, 1853, I started from St.Louis on the evening train bound for Chicago.There were only twenty-four passengers, all told.There were no ladies and no children.We were in excellent spirits, and pleasant acquaintanceships were soon formed.The journey bade fair to be a happy one; and no individual in the party, I think, had even the vaguest presentiment of the horrors we were soon to undergo.
"At 11 P.m.it began to snow hard.Shortly after leaving the small village of Welden, we entered upon that tremendous prairie solitude that stretches its leagues on leagues of houseless dreariness far away toward the jubilee Settlements.The winds, unobstructed by trees or hills, or even vagrant rocks, whistled fiercely across the level desert, driving the falling snow before it like spray from the crested waves of a stormy sea.The snow was deepening fast; and we knew, by the diminished speed of the train, that the engine was plowing through it with steadily increasing difficulty.Indeed, it almost came to a dead halt sometimes, in the midst of great drifts that piled themselves like colossal graves across the track.Conversation began to flag.Cheerfulness gave place to grave concern.The possibility of being imprisoned in the snow, on the bleak prairie, fifty miles from any house, presented itself to every mind, and extended its depressing influence over every spirit.
"At two o'clock in the morning I was aroused out of an uneasy slumber by the ceasing of all motion about me.The appalling truth flashed upon me instantly--we were captives in a snow-drift! 'All hands to the rescue!'
Every man sprang to obey.Out into the wild night, the pitchy darkness, the billowy snow, the driving storm, every soul leaped, with the consciousness that a moment lost now might bring destruction to us all.
Shovels, hands, boards--anything, everything that could displace snow, was brought into instant requisition.It was a weird picture, that small company of frantic men fighting the banking snows, half in the blackest shadow and half in the angry light of the locomotive's reflector.
"One short hour sufficed to prove the utter uselessness of our efforts.
The storm barricaded the track with a dozen drifts while we dug one away.
And worse than this, it was discovered that the last grand charge the engine had made upon the enemy had broken the fore-and-aft shaft of the driving-wheel! With a free track before us we should still have been helpless.We entered the car wearied with labor, and very sorrowful.
We gathered about the stoves, and gravely canvassed our situation.We had no provisions whatever--in this lay our chief distress.We could not freeze, for there was a good supply of wood in the tender.This was our only comfort.The discussion ended at last in accepting the disheartening decision of the conductor, viz., that it would be death for any man to attempt to travel fifty miles on foot through snow like that.
We could not send for help, and even if we could it would not come.We must submit, and await, as patiently as we might, succor or starvation!
I think the stoutest heart there felt a momentary chill when those words were uttered.
"Within the hour conversation subsided to a low murmur here and there about the car, caught fitfully between the rising and falling of the blast; the lamps grew dim; and the majority of the castaways settled themselves among the flickering shadows to think--to forget the present, if they could--to sleep, if they might.
"The eternal night-it surely seemed eternal to us-wore its lagging hours away at last, and the cold gray dawn broke in the east.As the light grew stronger the passengers began to stir and give signs of life, one after another, and each in turn pushed his slouched hat up from his forehead, stretched his stiffened limbs, and glanced out of the windows upon the cheerless prospect.It was cheer less, indeed!-not a living thing visible anywhere, not a human habitation; nothing but a vast white desert; uplifted sheets of snow drifting hither and thither before the wind--a world of eddying flakes shutting out the firmament above.
"All day we moped about the cars, saying little, thinking much.Another lingering dreary night--and hunger.