Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Page
Copyright. 1012. by American-Examiner. Great Britain Eights Reserve.
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4The engineer caught sight of that bedraggled, pathetic little figure, standing,
' tottering between the rails, Jeebly swinging a lantern."
OF blue pajamas and the girl It 1b to
sing to paraphrase the opening line of
Virgil's undying epic of heroism.
"Anns and the man"--blue pajamas and the
girl. Henceforth let everybody grant to the
gentler sex all the rights there are.
Clad only in those blue pajamas, her little
bare white feet splashing through the mud of
a black and rainy midnight, she sprinted half
a mile to the railway tracks barely in time
to flag the fast express and save Its sleeping
passengers from destruction by a train Of
runaway freight cars.
Her name is Hester Ross Hester Ross, of
Ross Springs, Mississippi.
It would be impossible for even the gravest .
and most dignified historian to eliminate
those blue pajamas. As well might Virgil
have pictured his man without arms. If little
Miss Ross had not, that very night, for the
first time, discarded her creamy white, lace
trimmed nighty in favor of her first suit of
pajamas, she would have slept soundly, as
usual- The jingle of the telephone bell would
not have awakened her. The fast express and
its human freight would have whirled on to
their doom.
Ross Springs is a pretty little town named
for the prominent Ross family of which Miss
Hester is the bright, particular attraction. She
is just twenty, " beautiful, accomplished,
acknowledged . belle not only of her own
town but of all that section of Mississippi.
Her father's spacious mansion, set back half
a mile from the railway tracks, is the princi
pal social rendezvous between Laurel, five
miles away, and Noxapater, ten miles distant
in the other direction all on the main line of
the railroad- At Ross Springs a short spur
branches off from the main line. The Junc
tion Is called Ross Spur. Owing to light
traffic on the branch, the telegraph operator
at Ross Spur goes off duty before midnight.
Thus the right of way for fifteen miles is con
trolled by the dispatchers at Laurel and
Noxapater.
Keeping the topography and this traffic ar
rangement in your mind, let us return to
pretty Hester Ross and her brand new blue
pajamas- ,
They were her first Introduction to paja
mas of any color, and Miss Hester was the
first girl in her Mississippi social set to make
up her mind to follow the pajama example of
society girls in the big Eastern cities.' Women
of the aristocratic old South are conservative
in such matters. Most of them still favor
those charmingly feminine robes of sheerest
linen, lace-trimmed, dainty, which their
mothers and grandmothers wore, and which
are popularly referred to as nighties.
It is whispered about down in that section
of Mississippi that the wardrobe of no
Southern society girl contained prettier, dain
tier, more charmingly be-Iaced and be-rib-boned
"nighties" than that of beautiful Hes
. ter Rosi Such whispers, entirely feminine
at the start, more widely circulated through
the medium of sisterly confidences to brothers
too young to be quite discreet, ultimately can
be heard over quite a lot of territory.
So it must have been one of those rare
benevolent interventions of Fate that caused
little Miss Ross to fold up and put away her
whole supply of these charming textile con
fections, and, at the psychological moment, to
substitute pajamas. She bad plenty of
nighties. She did not really need pajamas
at ' all. But Imagine a pretty, delicately
nurtured girl of twenty sprinting for half a
mile through the rain in a lace-bedecked
nighty, be-rlbboned, voluminous, and of gos
samer thinness! You see there was a definite,
great and humane purpose in those blue paja
mas, though when Miss Ross prepared to don
them for the first time she was wholly Ignor
ant of the fact.
All the same, it was a great occasion. Paja
mas, masculine or feminine, are much less
Intimate and retiring tan nighties. Perfectly
nice and re
spectable young
actresses wear
pajamaB right out
In public on the
stage. A society
girl In pajamas if
fairly well cos
tumed for general
circulation in
strictly domestic
premises; where
as, in either case,
the nightie and
its wearer, and
the spectators,
would be scan
dalized. It is on record
that Miss Ross's
new pajamas
were blue. It goes
without saying
that they were
of the finest mate-
rial and fitted her
t o perfection
wisely, and not
too well. The coat
had a military col
lar, and owned
sleeves that
reached nearly to
her dimpled
knuckles. The er
trousers were of
generous breadth,
and the bottom
hems caressed her
slender ankles.
Now, If you have
seen Pauline
Chase on the
stage in her
famous pink paja
mas, you can con
jure up a tolerably
accurate vision of
Miss Hester Ross,
ready for bed on
that eventful
night, attired in
her brand new
ones.
In spite "of the
unfamiliar gar
ment, it is prob
able that Miss
Ross said her
prayers with her
customary rever
ent concentration
upon the subject;
but once her head
was on the pillow
and the lights
llherast Express !
Worn for the First Time by a
. Southern Society Beauty, They
Splash Through the Mud for
Half a Mile at Midnight, and
Flag a Train in Time to Prevent
. a Collision
pajamas was tn the Ross kitchen, lighting
a lantern. In another instant she was out
through the back way, her white feet
flashing in the lantern's light as she
printed through the mud for the rail
way tracks, half a mile away. '
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 Btreak." Mud
splashed to her knees,' the rain soaking
her through and through, she ran without
a thought that was not centred on beat
ing the through express to the Ross Spur
Juctlon.
Her long hair came down and streamed
out behind her as she ranshe had for
gotten that she had any hair. Splashes of
mud from her flying bare feet flecked her
cheeks, her chin, her nose. Hester Ross,
the daintiest girl creature in the State of
Mississippi, didn't oare 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
ter a thought. '
Only another fifty yards but her bosom
was bursting with breathlessness. Another
long whistle from the express, not an
eighth of a mile away! She pulled her
self together for the final spurt, and made
"Swinging her lantern, she ran like a 'blue streak.' "
lift
. W:o::MA-J.'.'..i;
Miss Hester Ross, the Pretty Mississippi Society
Girl and "Blue Pajama" Heroine.
were out well, any truthful girl, remem
bering her own parallel experience, will
tell you that wearing pajamas for the first
time is not conducive to sound slumber.
They have not that grateful, soft,volumin
ousness of the nightie. The lower portion
of of the garment "complete in two 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.
AH of which retarded Miss Heste'r cus
tumary prompt passage into the Land of
Nod. She heard the hall clock strike the
" hour of eleven. For another half hour she
beard 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 tele
phone bell down in the hall was ringing.
The scene changes to the train de
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 Ross Spur only five miles
away.
Suddenly Despatcher Stepp's telegraph
sounder begins rattling away at a frenzied
rate, ticking off his signature "C. 0., C.
O., C. 0.!" Stepp responds in a hurry. It
is the operator at Noxapater who Is call
ing. His Instrument fairly stutters with
anxiety as It clicks into Stepp's ears the
warning:
"Hold No. 72. Cut off freight cars run
ning loose 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 Ro&3 Spur, five miles
away, and no operator there! Despatcher
Stepp ihinks hard, while Jumping across
to the round house, where there's a tele
phone. It'B the only chance. And at mid-
s : r? ' - - - - L, j
111
V'-fliiiiiniiiiirimHifi nitummiriiiMi urmiiT ir ii-in m n iiiii.ii.i. , H
"Suddenly little Miss Ross, blue pajamaed, sat up in bed and list
ened: Why, I m not dreaming it IS the telephone r "
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 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. She "plugged" the Ross line
and set the bell a jlngllng and kept it
jingling with those short, 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 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 ac
customed nightie, she laughed lightly, and
slipped down the stairs in her bare feet
to answer the 'phone.
Despatcher Stepp's message, concisely
repeated by Mary Monday, drove all the
sleep from little Miss Hester's brain.
"The through express?" she said into
the 'phone. "Flag It to prevent a colli
sion? Of course inBtantly!"
Mary Monday, at Laurel, heard no
more. A pretty girl in bare feet and blue
it barely in time.
The puffing locomotive was not a hun
dred yards away when the engineer
caught sight of that bedraggled, pathetlo
little figure standing, tottering, between
the rails, feebly swinging a lantern. One
sharp toot on the whistle satisfied the
panting girl that he understood that she
had saved the express. Then she dropped
like a dead girl, with the arm that held
the lantern lying limp on one of the rails.
The train stopped with the locomotive's
nose almost in her face. Grizzled En
gineer Adams picked up the lifeless figure
in his arms and carried it back towards
the cab of his engine. The girl opened
her eyes and mumbled something about
a "runaway freight." At that very minute,
looking up the grade, Engineer Adams
could see through the mist a dark mass
approaching. A few seconds later his lo
comotive bad a broken nose and one of
the runaway freight cars lay on its side
in the ditch.
It both trains had been in motion there
would have been a wreck with terrible
loss of life. As it was, the impact was
hardly sufficient to awaken the express
passengers.
Little Miss Ross quickly revived. Her
pajamas were no longer blue they were
black with mud. Assured that no lives
were lost she looked at herself and
laughed heartily. But there were tears
in the eyes and lumps in the throats of
the escOrt of train men who accompanied
her back to the Ross mansion.
The general superintendent of the road
has written little Miss Ross a letter of
congratulation. Residents of Ross Springs
are petitioning the Carnegie Commission
to give her a medal. As for Miss Hester
Ross, herself, she Just laughs merrily,
and remarks that no girl has a better
excuse to stick to blue pajamas for the
rest of her life!