Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/27

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We hadn't worked ten minutes more, and my arms were beginning to ache from the continuous motion, when Bill roared out:

"Say! you infernal counter-jumper, will you git out o' the way, so I can see that man's signals? Set down, fall down, git down off o' there! You'll scare the engine off the track, the way you're flapping your wings." Then, having occasion to go to the other end of the yard, he pulled her wide open, drenching me with soot and water from the stack, until I was a sight for gods and men. I had my best clothes on, and they were ruined.

When we were relieved at six o'clock, I was tired, dirty, thoroughly disgusted with railroading, and firmly determined to quit at once.

During the evening, however, I scraped acquaintance with a young fellow about my own age. I was attracted by his appearance, he seeming to be, like myself, "a boy from home," although not as green as I was. When I told him I would railroad no more, he said I was foolish; he had been at it a year and liked it; and he predicted that inside of thirty days I would too. He said he wouldn't go back to the farm for anything.

He admitted that the talk I had heard in regard to killing and maiming was by no means exaggerated, but believed that it was largely due to the recklessness of the men themselves, and he hoped to escape the almost universal fate by being careful. Poor fellow! he was blown from the top of his train a few months afterwards, and found by the section gang, frozen stiff.

Being considerably cheered by my new friend's advice, I reconsidered my decision, and reported for duty at six o'clock the next morning, and worked all day, with no more thrilling adventure than an occasional cursing from sooty Bill, which, however, I soon learned to disregard entirely.

Before I had been a week in the yard I was well broken in, and had acquired the reckless air which is the second stage in the greenhorn's experience and is characteristic of the period before he gets hurt.

I delighted in catching and riding in the most swiftly flying cars, and became an expert at making quick couplings and flying switches. Occasionally an old hand would say, with a wise shake of the head: "You'll git it bimeby," but I only laughed.

It was four or five months before I "got it." I was making a coupling one afternoon, had balanced the pin in the drawhead of the stationary car, and was running along ahead of the other holding up the link, when just before coming together she left the track, having jumped a