The occasion was the death of a valued
old friend who had requested that I should preach his funeral sermon.
I took my seat in the cars and set myself to framing the discourse. But
I never got beyond the opening paragraph; for then the train started and
the car-wheels began their 'clack, clack-clack-clack-clack! clack-clack!
--clack-clack-clack!' and right away those odious rhymes fitted
themselves to that accompaniment. For an hour I sat there and set a
syllable of those rhymes to every separate and distinct clack the
car-wheels made. Why, I was as fagged out, then, as if I had been
chopping wood all day. My skull was splitting with headache. It seemed
to me that I must go mad if I sat there any longer; so I undressed and
went to bed. I stretched myself out in my berth, and--well, you know
what the result was. The thing went right along, just the same.
'Clack-clack clack, a blue trip slip, clack-clack-clack, for an eight
cent fare; clack-clack-clack, a buff trip slip, clack clack-clack, for a
six-cent fare, and so on, and so on, and so on punch in the presence of
the passenjare!' Sleep? Not a single wink! I was almost a lunatic when
I got to Boston.
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