Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/178

364 want any quarreling in my office; you can call in to-morrow and get your time."

No fireman can keep an engine "hot," except with the strictest cooperation on the part of the engineer. In order that the engine shall steam, it is imperative that the engineer shall cut his steam off as short as possible and run his pump according to certain rules well known to the fraternity. In other words, it is no trouble at all to the engineer to "knock out" the best fireman that ever handled a shovel.

Not only do all engineers invariably depend on him to perform many of the duties properly belonging to themselves, but he it is who bends his back and hustles to make steam to get the train in on time, frequently with miserable fuel and an engine that ought to be in the scrap-heap. When time is lost for the want of steam, it is on the fireman's devoted head that the wrath of the engineer, master mechanic, and superintendent falls; no excuse being accepted, even though it be evident to anybody that the coal is seventy per cent, slate and the valves and pistons blow like sieves.

Though all the train-despatchers, brass-bound conductors, and engineers do their level best, no train can make time or break a record unless the grimy, unheard-of, and unthought-about fireman, down there in his black hole, knows his business and does it.

I went to the roundhouse, washed up, and then went to get something to eat. I ran across the conductor, who was bound on the same errand, and told him what had occurred in the master mechanic's office, and also gave him a short account of myself. He was quite friendly, and invited me to sleep in his caboose during its stay at that end of the division and get acquainted with the boys. "For," said he, "railroad men when looking for a job are not apt to be very rich, and there's no use of paying for lodgings while the yard is half full of cabooses."

I accepted his invitation thankfully, and found that I was quite a hero. The men took delight in introducing me as the fellow who had bearded old Joe in his cab and yet survived to tell the tale.

The result of their hospitality was, that three days passed before I returned to the master mechanic's office for the bill of my time. On leaving the office I ran across Mr. Phelps, who asked me to accompany him to the roundhouse. He took me away round out of sight and hearing, behind a big freight engine, and asked what was the trouble between Grinnell and me.

I told him all that happened on the trip, but before I got through he said, "Never mind all that; I want to know what it was that you said to him."

When I told him, a broad smile spread over his face. "I'd have been willin' to lose a month's pay to have seen ole Joe then," said he. "Say, young feller, I can't give you a job firin' just yet; Joe's queered you for a bit; but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll set you to wipin', an' give you the first chance. What do you say?"

I didn't care to wipe engines, as that is the very lowest rung in the ladder, besides being extremely dirty and disagreeable work.

He assured me, however, that both the master mechanic and himself, as well as nearly all the engineers on the road, had begun as wipers. He said that was the proper way for a man to learn any trade, to begin at the bottom; and, in fine, he said so much, and seemed so anxious to have me take the job, that I accepted, and have never regretted it to this day.

For fifteen months I wiped engines, turned the table, shoveled ashes, washed out boilers and tanks, helped the machinists to lug and lift, and in fact did all manner of the dirtiest and hardest work that has to be done about a railroad roundhouse. For the wipers are everybody's helpers. Is a particularly hard job to be done, get one of the wipers to do it; if a sewer gets clogged, send a wiper in to clear it; and who ever heard of a wiper complaining? They seem to glory in and thrive on dirt.

During those fifteen months I became, from constant association, perfectly familiar with all the outward and visible parts of the locomotive, as I saw them taken to pieces by the mechanics; and as I was blessed with a good-sized bump of inquisitiveness, I also learned enough of the mysterious properties of the slide valve to enable me to take part in the deeply erudite discussions which frequently took place among the firemen.

The wipers are severe critics of the engineers; they know whose engine is always in first-class order, nuts and bolts all in place and tight, wedges never down, and everything where it ought to be.