The night of the wreck our train was whooping along at about 90 miles an
hour, on a hippity-hop railroad in Pennsylvania, and the night was hot,
and the mosquitoes from across the line in New Jersey were singing their
solemn tunes, and pa, who attended a lodge meeting that night at the
town we showed in, was asleep and talking in his sleep about passwords
and grips, and the freaks and trapeze performers in our car had got
through kicking about how the show was running into the ground, when
suddenly there was a terrific smash-up ahead, an engine boiler exploded,
a freight car of dynamite on a side track exploded and there was a
grinding and bumping of cars. Then they rolled down a bank, over and
over, so the upper berth was the lower berth half the time, and finally
the whole business stopped in a hay marsh, and the bilge water in the
marsh leaked into the hold of our car; people screamed, and some one
yelled "fire!" and I pulled on pa till he woke up.
I thought pa's head was all caved in, because he talked nutty. The first
thing he said was: "Say I, pronounce your name, and repeat after me,"
and then he said: "I promise and swear that I will never reveal the
secrets of this degree," and then the conductor pulled pa's leg and
said: "Crawl out of the window, old man, 'cause the train is in the
ditch, the car is afire, and if you don't get out in about a minute with
the other freaks, you will be a burnt offering.
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