It was getting daylight, and the relief train stopped, and the good Samaritans came wading into the hay marsh, bent on settling with us cheap.  The first lawyer asked the principal owner how many were killed, ’cause they could figure exactly how much they have to pay for a dead one, but the live ones are the ones that make trouble for a railroad, ’cause they can kick and argue.  The boss said nobody was dead, but the giant, who was mired in out of sight.  The giant heard what was said, and he yelled that he was alive, and wouldn’t settle for less than $20,000, but the claim agent said the giant would be dead in 15 minutes in that quicksand, so he would let him sink, and pay for him as a dead one.

The giant said if they would pull him out of the mud he would settle for $100, and they pulled him out, and the rest of the injured were going to mob him for settling so cheap.

One of the claim agents found the bearded woman sitting on a hay cock, combing out her whiskers, and asked what it would take to settle, and she said $10,000, and she got up and walked over to another hay cock where the Circassian beauty was drying her hair, and the claim agent looked at how spry the bearded woman walked, and he said to the boss:  “I won’t give that fellow with the curly whiskers a single kopeck,” and the bearded woman came back and swatted the claim agent for calling her a fellow.  So they compromised on $200, and she went behind the haystack and put it in her stocking, which convinced the claim agent that she wasn’t a man.

A near-sighted claim agent came to the haystack where the fat woman was, and the boss told her now was her time to have a mess of hysterics, so she set up a cry that scared the agent, who thought there were at least six women on the haystack, and he said:  “What will all of you people up there on the haystack settle for in a lump, for I am in a hurry?”

The fat woman caught on at once, and said:  “We will all settle for $10,000.”  Then she yelled, and the agent thought her back was broke, and he offered $7,500, and she cried and said:  “Make it $10,000,” and the agent said:  “I will go you,” and he made out a check, and the fat woman had some more hysterics.

I had watched the settling all around, and I told pa to be deaf and dumb when they came to him, and just point to the seat of his pants in front and buttoned up behind, and look as though he was suffering the tortures of the inquisition, and let me do the talking, and I would make the old railroad go into a receiver’s hands.

So pa said:  “You are the boss,” and he looked so pitiful that I almost cried.

When the near-sighted claim agent came to pa, I told him that pa’s last words were to beg to be shot, and the man looked at pa’s pants, and then at his face, and said:  “What hit him?  That’s the worst case I ever saw in a railroad wreck.”

[Illustration:  “What Hit Him?  That’s the Worst Case I Ever Saw!”]