Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/29

Rh to my great delight, took me with him on the road. I was not only glad to get out of the slaughter-house with my full complement of limbs, but I was also pleased at the prospect of at last learning practical railroading, of which I had heard so much.

We had a fine big eight-wheel caboose, right out of the paint-shop, red outside, and green inside. There were six bunks in her, a row of lockers on each side to sit on and keep supplies in, a stove and table, and a desk for the conductor. We furnished our own bedding and cooking utensils, and as Simmons wouldn't have any but nice fellows around him, we had a pleasant and comfortable home on wheels. We each contributed to the mess, except the flagman, and as he did the cooking, he messed free. We took turns cleaning up, and as the boys had good taste, we soon had the car looking like a young lady's boudoir. We had lace curtains in front of the bunks, a strip of oilcloth on the floor, a mat that the flagman had "swiped" from a sleeper, a canary in a cage, and a dog.

As a younger man than I had been assigned to us, I was second man, which gave me the head of the train; so I rode on the engine and was the engineer's flag.

I ran ahead when necessary to protect our end, opened and closed switches, cut off and coupled on the engine, held the train on down grades, watched out for the caboose on curves, took water, shoveled down coal to the fireman, rang the bell at crossings, put on the blower, oiled the valves, and handed the engineer oil-cans, wrenches, and lights for his pipe.

I now scraped acquaintance with that formidable document the time table, and heard train orders and the officers who issued them discussed by such high authorities as conductors and engineers; and I listened in rapt astonishment at the deep erudition which they displayed in handling these subjects. I soon learned that the officers on our road "didn't know nothing " and that "where I come from" they would not have been allowed to "sit on the fence and watch the trains go by;" whereupon I conceived a great wonder as to how the road survived under such densely incompetent management.

I enjoyed riding on the engines, as the engineers and firemen were fine, sociable fellows. When we were a little late and had a passing-point to make, the engineer would sometimes say, "Don't you set no brakes goin' down here; I got to git a gait on 'em." Then when the train pitched over the top of the hill, he would cut her back a notch at a time, till he got her near the center, and gradually work his throttle out wide open. How she would fly down hill, the exhaust a steady roar out of the stack, the connecting-rods an undistinguishable blur, the old girl herself rolling and jumping as if at every revolution she must leave the track, the train behind half hid in a cloud of dust, and I hanging on to the side of the cab for dear life, watching out ahead where I know there is a sharp reverse curve, and hoping, oh, so much, that he'll shut her off before we get there.

I watch that grimy left hand on the throttle, for the preliminary swelling of the muscles that will show me he is taking a grip on it to shove it in. Not a sign; his head and half his body are out the window; and now we are upon it. I give one frightened glance at the too convenient ditch where I surely expect to land, and take a death grip of the side of the cab. Whang! She hits the curve, seems to upset; I am nearly flung out the window in spite of my good grip. Before she has half done rolling (how do the springs ever stand it?) she hits the reverse, and I am