THE BATTALION.
5
RAISING COTTON.
S. P, H.
Of all the cadets who walk down to the
water-tank, on the railroad, about two
miles below College, there are only one or
two perhaps who know the story (and it is
a true one) of how cotton was raised in the
ravine, that njw forms the bed of the tank.
It is because this little incident is so lit
tle known and because I believe the place
will be of more interest hereafter to the
many who take their Sunday evening
walk in that direction, that I am going to
repeat this story once more.
In the year 18— a young man happened
to be riding along the road, that here runs
parallel to the railroad, on a dark night in
October and he saw something large, and
apparently heavy, drop off the train. Com
ing back the next morning to see what it
was that had fallen he discovered it to be a
bale of cotton. With the help of a friend
he moved the bale to an old house and de
cided to go to town, secure some new bag
ging and on his return to re-bale and sell it.
On the way to town our young hero’s
brain was not idle and he commenced to
think that if one bale of cotton could fall
from a train why could not another do so?
He then brought a lot of strong rope and
a cotton hook. That night he fastened the
rope to a tree near the track (and, by-the-
way, there were a great many more trees
near the track then, for the land around
had not been cleared up or planted). At
the other end of the rope was securely fas
tened the cotton hook, and as the train
passed a strong arm threw it well up on
top of a flat car piled high with bales of
cotton. As a result another bale was
dropped from the train, rebaled and sold.
Other men in this community saw that
this was a paying business, and in a very
short time some fifty men were “raising
cotton” in the dark clumps of trees near
the railroad. But there was one trouble,
it was hard to get so much cotton rebaled
and sold without being detected in the
theft.
Consequently, a gin was erected below
college and the owner made quite a small
fortune by rebaling cotton; charging pretty
good prices for doing so, too, as he had to
keep “mum” about it all, and, practically
had a good many men’s lives in his hands,
he could ask good prices and get them.
Soon, however, the railroad began to
make inquiries about the amount of cotton
lost between Bryan and Houston and sent
agents down here to find out the cause of it.
The agents found out about where and how
the cotton was lost and were anxious to
catch the perpetrators of the theft, but the
sheriff and other officers found it would be
unsafe to investigate the question, so re
fused to acknowledge that the deed was
being committed in their county. It has
since been found to be a fact that most of
the public officers in the county knew who
the thieves were and many were personal
friends, in fact some of the officers had a
hand in the “swiping,” as we would call it
now.
At last, however, a car left Bryan loaded