| Show A thrilling eide bide a snowplow snow plow BY lly rev ner HENRY hnnry wand WARD BEECHEK BEECHER among the things which I 1 have always longed to sees seey see Is the work ot of the snow inow plow driven along the thel covered track and through heaped snows drifted into deep cuts this I 1 have at length seen the train came from watertown to cape vincent vincentt new york with two engines and a now snow plow eow when we reached pier rier pierpont pont manor the conductor ductor kindly acceded tamy my wish to go forward and take a arth berth berah with the engineer I 1 was soon in position for two days it had been storming the air was murky and crosa kosa the snow was descending not peacefully and dreamily but wh ried and made wild by fierce clods the forests were laden with snow and their interior looked murky and dr dreadful as a witcha d n through such scenes 1 pegan began my ply ride upon the plow shoving engine the engineers and firemen were coated with snow front from head to foot and looked like millers who had never brushed their coati coats for tor a generation the floor on which we stood was ice and snow halt hall melted the wood was coated with snow the locomotive was frosted all over with snow wheels connecting rods rod 8 ing bit the boiler ani smoke stack stick the le Ms aad and front windows were glazed with wita crusts of ice and only th through r rough ough jugh one little spot la in the window over the boiler could I 1 peer out to get a sight of the plow the track was ind indistinguishable there thero was nothing to the eye to gulde guide gye the engine in one way more than another it seemed as it if we were going across fields and plunging through forests at random and this gave no mean excitement to the scene when two ponderous engines were apparently drivins driving us in such an in outlandish excursion but their thein teet feet were wera sure and unerrIng unerringly lv felt their way along the iron road roady bo so that we were hell bell la our courses frothing can exceed the beauty of snow gnats in tta own ar or in the graceful gracefulness ness nesi with which it falls in th the I 1 curvature of iti drift dritt iines lines and in rhe fhe the curves which it makes maes when streaming off on either elie elje of the plow it was never long the iame tame it if the snow was thin and light tight tha thi plow seemed to play tenderly with it H like an artist doing cui cur lotis tatus things for tor sport throwing 11 li ii exquisite curtesy curves that rosa rose and fell teil quivered and trembled as they ran th h y suddenly striking aritt a ritt rift that had bad piled across the track the am kaw arians shiun out as it if driven by an twenty and thirty feet in jets and bolts or I 1 tong long ong stemmed sheaves sheave of 9 snow ow wheaty wheat spread out fanlike fan tan ilke like instantly the drift pas ael bed the snow seemed se emerl emeil by an instinct of its owns own to retract played again in exquisite u ros and an fell about our prow prow now snow get ith ity it the engineer ln in that deep cut we only saw gaw the first dash as if the plow had bad struck the binks ot of snow before it could put on its graces and shot it d distracted traded and headlong up and down on either side like spray or flying ashes it was but a second for the fine snow roge rose up round the engine and covered it like a mist rid nd sucking round poured IA in upon us in sheets and clouts cleouls mingled with the vapor va pon por of steam team and the smoke mote impeded draft poured out filled the engine room and darkened ily ill it so alaj tha av we could not see each rach other a foot distant except as very filmy specters glowering at each other our engineers had on coats whose natural hirsuteness was na ma mada made denoie more shaggy by tags taga of snow melted into icicles to see such substantial forms changing back and forth everi very tew tew few moments from a clearly earthly form into a spectral lightness as a if they a int bacz and forth between body and spirit was wai not a ritti i exciting to the uon when we struck deep bodies of snow the engine plowed through them laboriously labo quivering and groaning with the load bul but shot forth again nimble as a bird the moment the uio snow grew light nothing seemed wilder thin than to be in ons one of those thosa whirling storms of smokey smoke emoke vapor and snow you ton on one ponderous derous ilk iia monster and another roaring cloae close together r ani and boorn ng up when the snow mists opened a little black and terrible it seemed as if you yon were in a battle there was such energetic action such power fecca darkness and light alternating and such fitful balf lighta which are more exciting to the imagination than tight light or darit darif darkness tess thus chua whirled on in the bosom of a storm you yon sped across the open fields full of wild daiv in g snow 0 o ran up to the opening of the black pine and hemlock woods and plunged into their sombre mouth as it if into a cave of dark darkness nessy and wrestled your way along through their dreany dreary recesses emerging to the cleared field aaen avin with whistles screaming and answering each other oiher other back and forth from engine to engine for in the bewildering obscurity we have run past the station and must choke down the excited steeds and rein them back to the depot divi we th think rido ride lashed to a wild horse and rubbing through the foresta forest wolf driven to have been rather t exciting if it a man in a buffalo bunt by some str strange ange ashap should find himself thrown from his horse and mounted on the shaggy back of 0 an in old fierce buffalo bull bili and go with i a rush in cloud and dust among ten thou and sand ani tramping fellows pursued by yelling indians that I 1 too wout be an exciting ride but neither of these would know the highest exhilaration of the chisel chise until in wild storm stone upon a ik scowling day in january he rides upon a double enslie team behind a snowplow snow plow to clear the track ol 01 of banks and burdens of snow |
