HIS FEMALE RELATIVES.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7870, 22 May 1891, Page 3

HIS FEMALE RELATIVES.

" And we are his sisters and his cousins and and his aunts."— W, S. GHlbert

The brakeman paused: he reached his hand deep down in the side pocket of bis coat and produced a slab of black plug tobacco. After turning it about a few times in his fingers to fiud a favourable spot, he thrust it into his mouth and took a large and artistic bite. The despatche. and tbe agent declined. Then the brakeman restored the slab to his pockethoisted hl9 feet a little higher against the stove, and continued :—

Well, that's all right. If a man wants to monkey with that kind of thing, he can do it, but for mc, I ain't- in it. See? Ever since, Jim Rittler got so balled up through bavin' too many, I've considered that I was let out entirely. Beln' as Jim was my side parduer you might say, at the time, of course I had the whole story straight from him. You've heard it often enough, I reckon, so I don't need ter The despatcher and the agent said that they knew Jim Rittler, but they had never heard the story. The brakeman went on: Say, that's funny. I thought everybody about the road knew it. The general superintendent heard it, and Jim was expecting every day for a long time to have a dance on the carpet. You ought to get Jim himself to tell it, and if he ever gets transferred buck to this division, yod jest ask him how all bis female relatives is gett ng along. He'll ketch right on, and probably give you the whole story. Well, If you know Jim, there ain't no use in my sayin'- much about him. He was as popular and as well liked as any of the boys that was brakin' on this division at that time. But you probably couldn't tell, no more'n I can, why tbe girls was so stuck on him, for he want particularly good lookln', and he didn't put on any great amount of swagger. However, he was a pretty good single-hand talker, and probably that was what counted. My, but he was a Ughtenlng-ntrlker with the women I Why, sir, I have seen him cut right in and jest naturally walk off with the confiding affections of some young creature before you or I or any other man would have managed to get iutrojooced to her. And for the number .of 'em 1 Well, I hope to croak if there wasn't one at every stop along tbe line, and in tbe big places two or three; and in the city, there they was thick 1 The boys was all onto it, and they used to say that if we laid up on a siding right out ip the desert, all tbe Indian squaws would be around askiu' for Jim Rittler. Everybody seemed to think that he was a very "lucky fellow, but I always suspicmned that things would get balled up some day. If you keep putting on more trains, you have to keep ohangln' the schedule, and the first you know the thing is too complicated to manage, and then there are wrecks. Now, that's the way it was with Jim. Do you remember about two years ago when' Thirteen was ditched jest tbisside of White's 1 Well, Jim got hurt there— not much—jest enough to lay him op in the hesjpital for awhile. Of course tbe news went all up and down the line, and at every station you would see some girl wringin* her hands and askiri' about Jim. Naturally, the boys told 'era jest how it was—that Jim want hurt much, but was sidetracked ut the hospital. And what do you think f Why, every one of them bloumiu' girls allowed they would go right down to the city for to nuss him. They was unanimously of the idea that if they dfd'nt poor Jim wouldn't have .no one to take care of him—for, of course, there wasn't one of them that suspicloued tbe existence of the other, an' Jim he always made a point of tellin' 'em ail how he was an offun and alone iv tbe world. But we assured 'em all—leastwise, I did them that spoke to me—that the Sisters of Hope, who was ruuniug tbe hospital then, would take good care of Jim, and they needn't worry. Still there was some of 'em that wasu't satisfied, and they allowed they would go down anyway, jest to visit him. When I got in from the run thatuight i went around to see Jim myself, and I told him to be on the lookout, or he'd get jacked up. But he was feelin' pretty perky, and said he reckoned it was all right—that he had put up a kind of a schedule they could all run ou, and there want nodauger of anythiughappeaD, f'om Bixby was slttin' by the bed at the time, and as Jim spoke he winks at Tom, and Tom he grins. You Know lora-he used to be news-butcher on Nineteen, and now he'erunnin'a store in the city. Well, he'd been jammed upin a collision some time before, and was now about recoveredonly lame. To give him something to do, the sisters had put him in charge of the door, to show visitors in and around. •' I've told Tom about it," says Jim to mc, " and if oue of them comes while "another is here, he will keep her hack, by say in that they are fixed to dissect me—or something like that." " Saw your leg off," says Tom, grinnin some more. -~-__► «.•-- "Aud we have got it all put about the different degrees of relationship, J»m goes on, winkin' agin. Bug I didnt understand the signals, and 1 told mm so. , - " The Sisters of Hope has a rule, says he. " that a man can't have no ladies yisit him, unless they are akin to him.' - •* Well," says I, " much as I know about this hospital, I never heard no such rules as that.' ~ _, " Torn told mc, says Jim. And Torn, he spoke up perfectly solemn and said: _. ■_. . " That's right what he says. I ought to know, being as I am doorkeeper, and have to turn gals away every day." " We've got a reglar list, Jim says, ot iusc how many will go of each kind of relation, because it wouldn t do for a mau to have nineteen sisters, or twenty-three cousins, or anything like. that, for fear the public would catch on. See? "The first lot will be sisters,"says Tom, very quick; "and then_ comes cousins and l sisters-in-law, and then aunts *"' That'll be enough," says Jim. t " But if it ain't,"Tom goes <Melanin like he had just struck aJay-hawker with an armful of prize-packages, "there is 5 enti of other Bods of female relatives; wives and mothers-course those aloe available more than on«-*-aud grea X aunts aud grand-mothers, and mothers-in-la " AnT daughters," says I, jolnin' in,

cause 1 thought it was just a kind of Ru e n2._Sr ep / m8Bpirits U P* and Jim - he laughed and was very chipper about it. _-__i* n J co ?_ e a T ay ' 6atl neard afterwards how the scheme turned out. _X©_ »cc Tom was puttin' the thing upon Jim. There wasn't no rule about lady visitors like what he said, bat he had made it up jest to put Jim in the hole. Pretty soon the girls begun to-come— first those that lived in the city, and afterwards those from the country—and Tom would take'em confidentially into the w *-iring-room and tell 'em how glad Jim would tte, only they must pretend to be some relative of hie, else the sisters woulda'l let 'em iv. Of course they was allwil.iu' enough, and when they came to where Jim was, he would introjooce them to any of the Sisters of Hope that was about as his cousins or sisters, or whatever relation was down for that number on the list. I have an idea that them Sisters of Hope must have been thinkin' that Jim's ancestry run a long way back, for hira to scare up such a nailin' fine lot of female relatives on such short notice. Well, as I was sayin', the scheme that Tom put up was this : As each girl came down, after seem' Jim, he would stop 'em and, takin' 'em to one side, would tell how Jim had said a lot of nice things about them, and how he had been hoping they would come, and all that. Then he would ask if they expected to call again—for Jim would be very lonesome. Of course they all allowed they would. Then he told 'em that there was a new rule, and visiting relatives could only come on certain days and at certain hours. One way and another he fixed it up, so they was all agreed to come back to see Jim at exactly the same time on the same day. And Jim, of course, he was never suspicioning nothing no more'n a mm comin' round a curve in a cut with a wild train beariu' down on him. Well, come the day that Tom had set, the girls began to arrive—some of 'em ahead of the schedule. The butcher takes 'em into the waitin'-room, grinnin' like only a butcher can grin, and tells 'em that Jim will be ready to see 'em in a minute. When he thinks they are ail in—some dozen or fifteen there was altogether—Tom calls out, " Step this way. ladies, please 1" and leads 'em off all In a line up stairs. Now it jest so happened that there was quite a crowd around Jim's bed. There was a couple of Sisters of Hope and the assistant-surgeon of the line, Doc What's-hls-Name ?—lforgot- and several patients that was able to get about, and Jim he was givin' 'em some of his remarkable experiences on the road—for he could lie against any man I ever knew—and the audience wa3 gettin' properly excited — when all of a sudden Tom looms up. Eullin' that train of girls along behind im.

" Here's your female relatives, Jim," he calls out.

Say, but it must have been a sight. There was Jim with no chance to jump for his life. There was the Sisters of Hope and the others around the bed, who had already been quite uneasy about the surprisin' number of Jim's female relatives, and now was paralyzed to see 'era all at once. And there was the girls themselves. Fust they looks at Tom to see what he means, then they stare at one another, beginnin' to take it in, and they all unanimously glares at poor Jim, who was lyin' still in the bed utterly flabbergasted. And the silence was so thick and hard that you couldn't have gone through it with a rotary. At last one of the Sisters of Hope spoke up and says, " Why, its quite a family reunion you do be havin to-day, Mr Rittler."

" Yes," says Jim, very faint, like a kid that expects to be belted. " What 1" says the doctor, " are all these here ladies relatives of yourn?" and he began a-squlntln' down the line. Some was short and some tall, some fat aud some lean, and one was red-headed. "Really," he says, " it is a very remarkable family likeness, Are they all sisters ?"

"Four sisters," answers Tom Bixby. conaultio' a piece of paper which he held up to look at plainer : " five three sisters-in-law, two aunts, and a mother, mother-in-law and great-aunt if needed." By this time Jim was bsginnin' to get his wind again, and he puts hi-* hand out towards the nearest girl, and says, " Howdy do, Sister Emma ? lam glad to see you." And to the next one' " How are you, Cousin Mary ?" and was goin' on down the line, thinkin' perhaps that be could make each one of 'em believe that all tbe others was real relatives. But it wouldn't work. Before he had gone any distance, one of his " sisters" points to another "sister" right alongside of her, and says, in a loud voice, "Jim Rittler, who is this person? linsfjtupon knowing." The other answers back, and they all begins to talk at onct. Some on 'em turns on Jim, and I tell you they give it to him raw; but most of 'em keeps right ou jawin' at one another. At last the doctor and the sisters had to interfere. They rounded 'em up and led 'era away down stairs. Even when they come out in the street there wos two that very nearly had a Aght, and they kept a-going on as long as any of 'em was together. The moment the girls was out of the way, Jim he began to look for Tom Bixby, but the news-butcher had jest naturally slid off, and before Jim was able to get about he had left the hospital for good. After that Jim was hardly ever at rest for the joskin' he got about his female relatives. The very next time I went up to see him two of the doctors that was passiu' along stopped to ask why his mother had never thought to introduce bis sisters to one another when they was little, and how it happened that his greatauut was such a bloondu' young woman— and everything like that. It's my idea that the scrape kinder had a good effect on Jim —least-wise to the extent that he is now tryiu' to centralize his affections on one girl, instead of disseminatiu' them all along tbe line. And I shouldn't be surprised if before long that one girl and Jim was to

" There's Seventeen's whistle I" cried tbe agent. -'She is on time for once;" and they all sprang up and went 6ut on the platform.— Weekly World Herald.