CARRIED OFF IN A FREIGHT CAR.
Brakeman Joe did not love tramps. His regular work was hard enough,
goodness knows; and when, in addition to it, he had to make a thorough
examination of the whole train at every stopping-place, peering, by the
light of his lantern, between and underneath the cars for tramps, who
might be stealing a ride, he felt that he had good cause to dislike
them. Sometimes he had hard tussles before dislodging them from their
perches and roosts, and many an ugly blow had he received while
performing this duty. Joe had, therefore, learned to deal very promptly,
not to say roughly, with this portion of the travelling public whenever
he found them on or in the cars under his charge.
On this particular night he had made sure, before starting, that there
was not a single tramp on the train, and had in consequence been
anticipating a comparatively easy trip. And now he had, as he supposed,
discovered a whole nest of them snugly stowed away in car No. 201. A dog
too! It was aggravating, and, under the circumstances, it is not to be
wondered at that he hustled them out of there without much regard to
their feelings.
Both Arthur and Uncle Phin had been suddenly awakened, and greatly
alarmed, when Brakeman Joe first slammed and locked the door of the car
in which they had taken refuge from the storm. They had a confused idea
that they had been asleep, though for how long they could not tell, and
now they could no longer see the lighted clock above the railway
station. It might even be midnight, and time for their train to come
along for all they knew. They shouted, and kicked against the locked
door, and Rusty barked; but all in vain. The conductor and Brakeman Joe
had walked away before these noises began, and there was no one else to
hear them.
Then the engine came and pushed and pulled the car about until they had
not the slightest idea of the direction in which they were moving. It
might be forward or backward, east or west, for all they could tell. Nor
was their situation improved when the train, of which car No. 201
finally formed a part, pulled out of the railway yard, and started on
its long journey. They had no idea which way it was going, and Arthur
could have cried as he reflected that they might be travelling in
exactly the opposite direction from that they wished to take, and might
be carried hundreds of miles before their car door was again unlocked.
As he could not do this, because he was a Dale, he only hugged little
Rusty, and tried to be comforted by Uncle Phin’s assurances “Dat de good
Lawd was er gwine ter keer for dem, jes like He did fer de sparrers,
whose hairs was all counted so as dey shouldn’ fall to de groun.”
Arthur’s unhappiness was increased by the fact that he could nowhere
feel his precious book. It had slipped from his grasp as he slept, and
now was nowhere to be found. Thus the first stage of their journey by
rail was a most unhappy one, and they were glad to forget their sorrows
in the sleep that again overcame them a few minutes before the train
made its first stop.
The Arden station was a very small one, in a lonely place, with no
houses near it. It was only a platform with a freight shed at one end,
and a more forlorn place for a stranger to be left on a dark, stormy
night, could hardly be imagined. Arthur and Uncle Phin were not
conscious of the train stopping here, and were only awakened from their
troubled sleep by the light from Brakeman Joe’s lantern flashing in
their faces. They were just sitting up and gazing at him, in a
bewildered way, when this energetic young man hustled them out of the
car in his roughest manner. It was so rough, in fact, that poor Uncle
Phin, impelled by a violent push, slipped on the wet platform, and fell
heavily. He struck one of his knees such a painful blow that, for a few
moments, he was unable to rise, and lay there groaning.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself to treat an old man so!” cried Arthur to
Brakeman Joe, as with flashing eyes and quivering lips he sprang to his
companion’s side, and endeavored to assist him to his feet.
“Well, what business has the old tramp got to be stealing a ride on my
train?” replied the brakeman, sulkily, though at the same time bending
over Uncle Phin and helping him up.
He was not a bad-hearted young man, this Brakeman Joe; but he was
overworked, and much bothered by tramps. Generally he was good-natured,
and was especially kind and gentle with old people, for he had an old
father at home of whom he was the sole support, and to whom he was
devoted. He had not noticed, in the dim light, that Uncle Phin was old
and white-headed. He had only regarded him as a tramp, who, as everybody
knows, is apt to be young and strong, and well able to perform the labor
that he refuses to undertake out of sheer laziness. So now he helped the
prostrate figure to its feet, said he hoped the old fellow was not much
hurt, and then returned to his task of dragging the six sacks of meal,
that were to be left at Arden, from the car.
“What’s the matter here, Joe?” asked the conductor of the train,
stepping up at this moment.
“Only a couple of stowaways that I found stealing a ride in this car,”
was the answer.
“Tramps, eh?” said the conductor, sharply, flashing the light from his
lantern upon the two trembling figures who stood behind him. “A dog,
too,” he continued, “and I’ll warrant they stole it. I’ve a mind to take
it in payment for their ride. If this was a town I’d have you fellows
arrested and locked up in less than no time. You, and all your kind,
ought to be killed off for the good of the country. As it is I’ll leave
you here to soak in the rain for the rest of the night, and perhaps some
of the worthlessness will be washed out of you by morning. Hello! what’s
this?”
Here the conductor stooped and picked up a small object over which
Brakeman Joe had stumbled, and which he had sent flying out on to the
platform.
It was a book, and the conductor picked it up, wondering where it could
have come from. “‘Andersen’s Fairy Tales,’” he read aloud, holding it up
to his lantern. “The very book my little Kitty was asking me to get for
her only the other day! Well, if this isn’t a find!” Then, turning to
the fly-leaf, he read aloud: “To Prince Dusty, from——”
Here he was interrupted by Arthur, who sprang forward, and, stretching
out his hand for the book, cried: “Please, sir, it’s mine; and I should
feel dreadfully to lose it, and we aren’t tramps, and didn’t mean to
steal a ride. We got locked in by accident, and we have money enough to
pay for everything, and oh! please don’t leave us here in this lonely
place.”
The conductor stared at the boy in amazement. “Well, you do look like a
‘little Dusty’ sure enough, though I can’t say that you are exactly what
I should have fancied a Prince was. Who are you, anyway? And where do
you want to go to?”
Then Arthur, who was completely covered with white dust from the meal
sacks on which he had been sleeping, told the conductor, in as few words
as possible, of the object of their journey, and how they happened to be
locked into car No. 201. He finished by repeating that they had money,
and would willingly pay for the privilege of riding further on the
train, provided it was bound east. This last question was asked most
anxiously, for as yet the boy had not the slightest idea of where they
were.
“Bound east!” exclaimed the conductor. “Of course we are, and there goes
the ‘New York Limited’ now.” As he spoke, an express train, of heavy
vestibuled cars, thundered past them, with a roar and a crash, at such
tremendous speed that in a second it was gone, and its two red eyes,
looking backward, seemed to wink mockingly at the snail-like freight
train, as they were whisked out of sight.
“Now,” said the conductor as the roar of the express dying away
permitted his voice to be again heard, “I’ll tell you what I will do.
You say you are not tramps, and didn’t mean to stow away in that car,
and that you have money enough to pay for your trip. That all may be so,
and it may not. At any rate I haven’t time to investigate your story
now, for we must pull out of here at once. So you and the old man and
the dog just tumble into that caboose, and I’ll carry you along a bit
further. We’ll see about paying for the trip when you decide how far you
want to go, and you shall read a story out of your book to Brakeman Joe
and me, to pay for the ride you have already had. But mind,” he added
threateningly as Arthur began to thank him, “if I find that you have
been telling me any lies, I’ll have you arrested and locked up in the
very first town we come to.”