§ 216 Tributes to the Late Lamented Ones
Out West a dump car broke its couplings and went on a wild trip down grade. At a switch it was derailed, turning over on its side and instantly crushing to death a Mexican laborer.
It fell to the lot of the foreman of the gang to which the victim belonged to render a report of the tragedy. This foreman, whose name I believe was Cassidy,—at any rate, it was a good Hibernian name,—got along fairly well with his literary labors until he came to the final space in the printed form, opposite the question: Remarks? Mr. Cassidy studied awhile and then inserted these words:
“He never made none!”
The companion-piece to this has for a setting a stretch of a Southern line whereon a freight train had killed a cow, the property of a farmer. Mr. Dugan, the resident section boss, interviewed the owner of the slain animal and then proceeded to fill out a blank for the subsequent use of the claim agent.
Painstakingly Mr. Dugan entered references relating to the circumstances under which the fatality occurred, also the age, color and presumed value of the lately deceased cow and other particulars, as gleaned from eye-witnesses and from the bereft farmer. But he was stumped when he came to the words: “State disposition of the remains?”
He was stumped, but not for long; he set down this:
“She was kind and gentle!”