BLOWN FROM THE CAR.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 42, 17 October 1891, Page 499

BLOWN FROM THE CAR.

It is wonderful what dangerous experiences a person may undergo without loss of lim b or life, and hardly less wonderful what slight accidents will sometimes result fatally. A little girl, three years of age, named Helen Harmon, was travelling in the South with her parents. At the close of a day’s ride in the cars the child had become tired and restless. She was a dainty creature and had attracted the attention and admiration of her fellow passengers. Mr Harmon had retired to the smoking-car, and Mrs Harmon sat talking with a chance acquaintance. Helen climbed into her mother’s lap, and, as tired children do, teased for one thing after another. At length she began calling for a drink of milk, and, to divert her attention, her mother told her to go and get some water from the ice tank. This took her fancy at once, and she started eagerly for the water at the rear of the car. Here she amused herself for several minutes, Mrs Harmon turning her head now and then to watch her movements. Helen knew that her father was in the other car. She had once been there with him, and now she took it into her childish mind to go and find him. She was not afraid ; she went up to the door and peeped through the glass. The day had been cloudy. The wind blew in fitful gusts, and sometimes, heightened by the speed of the train, seemed almost a hurricane. Unobserved by her mother, Helen opened the door, hesitated a little, and then went out on the platform. She clung to the door handle for a moment. Then someone pulled on the door, and at that instant a violent gust of wind struck the car; the child released her hold, and was whirled from the platform. She screamed and vanished into the blackness of the night. Only a moment before a lady had said to the mother, ‘ Your little girl has gone out of the car.’ Mrs Harmon, in great alarm, rushed to the door just in time to hear the poor child’s shriek of terror, and to catch a glimpse of her white dress as the blast whirled her away. The parents were well-nigh distracted, and entreated the conductor to stop the train and go back for the child. He refused, kindly but firmly. ‘lt is impossible,’ he said. ‘ This train is now behind time ; the express is close upon us. Fifteen minutes’ delay might send us all to destruction. The little girl may be blown a good way, and at any rate we couldn’t find her in the dark. I’m sorry,’— and the conductor was seen to wipe his eyes. At the next station Mr and Mrs Harmon, accompanied by several of the sympathetic passengers, left the train, intending to go back and make their sad search. Meantime the express was speeding on behind. The engineer’s keen eyes discerned a peculiar-looking object on some bushes beside the track, as the rays from the headlight lighted up the gloom. ‘ Whv, that’s a child,’ he said to himself. He whistled ‘ down brakes,’ and the train soon stopped. The engineer sprang from the cab and ran back to the bushes. As he came near he heard a child crying. Firmly lodged in a thickgrowing clump of blackberry bushes little Helen was lying. She was badly scratched and frightened, but otherwise none the worse for her perilous fall. The engineer removed the girl with some difficulty from her prickly bed, and took her into his cab, and at the next station she was delivered safe and sound into her mother’s arms.