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Show BIIB-f 1 las t Express ' I -;iii9SfSiSS HbHbbW ' 05 Collision I 1th;' tottering between the rails, feebly swinging a lantern-" deaitX" blue pajamas and the girl It la to romij Bln to paraphrase the opening line of ,war,r Virgil's undving epic of heroism, lv o.' ( q fys and the man'' bine pajamas and the wui" Henceforth let everybody grant to the mai. 8?x a- tve rights there are. 1 .UJP' 0I1 t.hose blue pajamas, her little : t white- ic.-r spin shins through the mud of hiHlF md rainy midni&at 6be sprinted half in iifte to the railway tracks barely in time jua tag the fast express and save its sleeping A!JjngeT.T fn.-r! destruction by a train of tfuiiray freight cars-. th tfafcr name is Hester Ross Hester Ross, of jj :j Sprh)L', Vi-?:?:-;ppI. at fcorould be impossible for even the gravest 36-.KmoBt dignified historian to eliminate blue pajamas. As well might Virgil mstf pictured his man without arms. If little )i I Ross had not, that very night, for the ' 3 time, discarded her creamy white, lace-tteoed lace-tteoed nighiy in favor of her first suit of (to buib, she would have slept soundly, as 'The jincle of the telephone bell would Jbave awakened her. The fast express and t jijoman freight would have whirled on to e turn doom irl Vpu Springs is a pretty little town named mJie promlneM Ross family of which Miss jjt tier 1b the bright, particular attraction. She lust twenry, beautiful, accomplished, rtF-jowlpcLTf-d b---llr? not only of her own j5Jl bur of .ill th;r .section of .Mississippi, lather's spacious mansion, set back half htffle from !:.-- r.ii !.;, y tracks, Is the prlnci-Mfcocial prlnci-Mfcocial rendezvous between Laurel, five jo itijP away, and Noxapater, ton miles distant igMijjft other direction all on the main line of 8irlr0ad' At RSS SprIngs a short spur "IpheB off from the main line. The June-fori! June-fori! is called Ros3 Spur. Owing to light bsT 00 tbP branch' thG telegraph operator trii(BB Srnr KoeB off duty befro midnight n e ght of way for fifteen miles is con-I con-I J$ed by the dispatchers at Laurel and ln ipab3r. ndijWms the topo-raphy and this traffic ar JPjement in your mind, let us return to brWP Hester Rx)3S hr brand new blue i i Unas- f"(iW were her first Introduction to pala iiU?of any color, and Miss Hester was the Carijgirl in her Mi;;si.scippl social set to make miDd 10llW ,b Pajama aaple of Ity girls in the big Eastern cities Women 3t& aristocratic old South am conservative i, Kh matters. Most of them still favor I charmingly feminine robes of sheerest nA0 ' laclrijlJiJie(J mty, which their indj " ud "'hors wore, and which bt. ! jopularly referred to aa nighties J Inspired about down in that' section EUaippi ,hat the wardrobe of no flpfjfiem socc-y irl contained prettier dain .oro har'isy be-laced and bo-rlb- I lughues" than that of beautiful He J, loss. Such whimpers, entirely feminine Mi.u; more widely circulated through bdi-u of sisterly co-aiidences ro brothers pN wr:, ,iu,;i; j, io, or terrlt ,BB feLnJlliaVtt, beK" un,J of rare .JJJ iOkat uiusrvftnuons or Fate that caused &i ; little Miss Ross to fold up and put away her whole supply of these charming textile confections, con-fections, and, at the psychological moment, to substitute pajamas. She had plenty of nighties. She did not really need pajamas at all. But imagine a pretty, delicately-nurtured delicately-nurtured girl of twenty sprinting for half a mile through the rain in a lace-bedecked nighty, be-ribboned, voluminous, and of gossamer gos-samer thinness! You see there was a definite, great and humane purpose in those blue pajamas, paja-mas, though when Miss Ross prepared to don them for the first time she was wholly ignorant ignor-ant of the fact. All the same, it was a great occasion Pajamas, Paja-mas, masculine or feminine, are much less intimate and retiring than nighties. Perfectly nice and respectable re-spectable young actresses wear pajamas right out In public on the stage. A society girl In pajamas Is fairly well costumed cos-tumed for general circulation in strictly domestic premises; where-sr, where-sr, in either case, the nightie and Its wearer, and the spectators, would be 6can da II zed. It Is on record that Miss Ross's new pajamas were blue. It goes without Baying that they were of the flu est material mate-rial and fitted her t o perfection wisely, and not too well. The coat had a mllltarv col Jar, and owned Ieeves that reached nearly to ber dimpled knuckles The er trousers were of onerous breadth and the bottom hems caressed her Blender ankles Now, If yoi, have el Pauline n a e on the famous pink nnja. jaas, you can conjure con-jure up a tolerably accurate vision of MIes Hester Ross, ready for bed on that eventful n,ght. attired in brand new ones. In spite of the unfamiliar Kar ble that Miss K?8;j Bald her prayers with her customary rever. ent concentration upon the subject but once 0er oeaj was on the pillow and the aglit8 ':Tias3WB : ' ' mBWw?hPiHvwr-''ff '' J Sift. v "&Jlag,iDg uer icuitera, she ran ibke a 'blue streak " "4 Miss Hester Ross, the Pretty Mississippi S Girl and "Blue Pajama" Heroine. were out well, any truthful girl, remembering remem-bering her own parallel experience, will tell you that wearing pajamas for the ftret time is not conducive to sound slumber. They have not that grateful, soft.volumlr ousneBS of the nightie The lower portion of of the garment "complete in two numbers," num-bers," like an advertised short serial in a magazine conveys a sensation of not being properly undressed for bed. Most distracting of all is the pressure of the bow-knotted draw string at the waist of the er trousers All of which retarded Miss Heste'r cus tumary prompt passage into the Land of Nod- She heBrd the hall clock strike the hour of eleven. For another half hour she heard the rain drops splashing against her window panes. She heard the half-hour strike and then she probably dozed, for she thought she dreamed that the telephone tele-phone bell down In the hall was ringing The scene changes to the train do-spatcher's do-spatcher's room in the station at Laurel, Time, midnight. No. 72. the New Orleans, Mobile and Chicago through express, has Just passed, and is puffing off through the rain and fog up the heavy grade toward Noxapater, with Roes Spur only flvo miles away. Suddenly Despatchor Stepp's telegraph sounder begins rnttllng away at. a frenzied rate, ticking off his signature "C. O, C. O.. C, O 1" Stepp reepondB in a hurry. It is the operator at Noxapater who is calling. call-ing. His instrument fairly stutterB with anxiety as It clicks into Stepp's ears the warning: "Hold No. 72. Cut off freight cars running run-ning looBe on down grade!" All the startled Laurel despatcher can do is to get the lamentable truth on record. He replies: "Too late. Seventy-two has pulled out!" There is no possible chance of flagging the express short of Ross Spur, five miles away, and no operator there! Despatcher Stepp LhinkB hard, while Jumping across to the round house, where there's a telephone. tele-phone. It's the only chance. And at mld- "buddenly liltio Miss Koss, blue pajamaed, sat up in bed and list H ened: 'Why, I'm not dreaming it IS the telephone!' " jJ night, In that sleepy little place, how much of a chance? The runaway freight cars are slipping down a sharp grade while the express Is pulling up hill. To Ross Spur, ten down-grade miles for the runaway, only five miles for the express though the latter has to climb. Which will reach Ross Spur first? Anyway, it is a matter of precious minutes! Stepp Jerks down the telephone transmitter trans-mitter and yells for the solitary night central operator at Laurel Miss Mary Monday. Thank Heaven, Mary's on the Job! Stepp wastes no words: "Quick, Mary! Get somebody at Ross Spur anybody and tell em to flag Seventy-two! Life and death! Hurry!" Mary Monday, too, Is of the stuff that makes heroines. In a flash she saw the one chance the Ross mansion Nobody in the Ross family would stop to ask questions. 8he "plugged" the Ross line and set the bell a-JIngling and kept It lingllng with those Bhort, sharp pauses that seem to mean more than the sound of the bell. Suddenly little Miss Ross, blue-paja-maed, sat up in bed and listened. "Why. I'm not dreaming," she told herself. her-self. "It is the telephone!" Out of bed, with the light, switched on, she looked sleepily for her bathrobe. Then, noting her forgotten blue pajamas, so much more "dressy" than her accustomed ac-customed nightie, she laughed lightly, and slipped down the stairs in her bare feet to answer the 'phono. Despatcher Stepp's message, concisely repeated by Mary Monday, drove all the Bleep from little Miss Hester's brain. "The through express?" she said Into the 'phone "Klas? It to prevent a collision'' colli-sion'' Of course instantly!" Mary Monday, at Laurel, heard no more. A pretty girl in bare feet and blue pajamas was fa the Ross kitchen, Hghtm a lantern. In another Instant she was out through the back way. her white feet H flashing in the lantern's light as she sprinted through the mud for the rail- -ay tracks, half a mile away. 'H A long whistle from down the grade told her she was scheduled for the race of her life. Swinging her lantern, she ran like a deer. In her blue pajamas she ran literally like "a blue streak." Mud VM Bplashed to her knees, the rain soaking her through and through, Bhe ran without il a thought that was not centred on beat- iH Ing the through express to the Ross Spur Juction. Her long hair came down and streamed out behind her as she ran she had for-gotten for-gotten that she had any hair. Splashes of mud from he- flying bare feet flecked her cheeks, her chin, her nose. Hester Ross, the daintiest girl creature in the State of IH Mississippi, didn't care a particle. She climbed a rail fence In two bold leaps and came down in a mud-puddle that drenched her to the waist and never gave the mat- ll ter a thought. VM Only another fifty yards but her bosom IH was bursting with breathlessness. Another long whistle from the express, not an eighth of a mile away! She pulled her-self her-self together for the final spurt, and mads ' '"""" A It barely In time. ! The puffing locomotive was not a nun I dred yards away when the engineer caught sight of that bedraggled, pathetlo little figure standing, tottering, between ! the rails, feebly swinging a lantern. Ono jH sharp toot on the whistle satisfied the jH panting girl that he understood that she jf had saved the express. Then she dropped H like a dead girl, with the arm that held H the lantern lying limp on one of the rails. H The train stopped with the locomotive's H nose almost in her face Grizzled En- H gineer Adams picked up the lifeless figure H in his arms and carried it back towards the cab of his engine. The girl opened IH her eye3 and mumbled something about jH a "runaway freight." At that very minute, iH looking up the grade, Engineer Adams could see through the mist a dark mass approaching. A few seconds later his lo- H comotlve had a broken nose and one of the runaway freight cars lay on its side H In the ditch. If both tialnB had been In motion there H would have been a wreck with terrible loss of life. As it was, the impact was H hardly sufficient to awakeu the express H passengers. Little MIsb Ross quickly revived. Her pajamas were no longer blue they were black with mud. Assured that no lives H were lost she looked at herself and laughed heartily But there were tears iH in the eyes and lumps in the throats of the escort of train men who accompanied JH her back to the Ross mansion. JH The general superintendent of the road has written little Miss Ross a letter of ll congratulation Residents of Ross Springs Hl are petitioning the Carnegie Commission Bl to give her a medal. As for Miss Hester Wl Ross, herself, she just Iaugh3 merrily, il and remarks that no girl has a better 1 excuse to stick to blue pajania for too H rest of her life I 1 |
