BUT where is the hero? Who saved the train? Summerville, to this day,
goes seeking him, and her search is a vain thing. Will he not break his
long, mysterious silence? Will he not come forth to take the blessing of
the grateful people? An obscure old Negro, poor, hungry, and homeless,
will he not accept the proffered reward? Where is the hero?
Like Moses of old, hath God buried him? The earth knows, which yawned
beside the track--and closed again--when the crushing wheels struck the
life from the unknown savior of the excursion train. The earth knows;
but she keeps her secret. Her awful lips are dumb.
[Illustration: "HAD THE CURIOSITY TO PICK UP THE RAGS."]
Some weeks after the shock of August 31, a section hand, setting a
sleeper, found an old bundle, soiled and wet, tied to a stick and
mouldering in the ground. He opened it carelessly, and threw it away,
and hardly thought to mention it to his overseer, who had the curiosity
to pick up the rags and examine them.
A handkerchief, once red, with polka spots, contained a ragged flannel
shirt and a stocking-heel tied with a piece of tape. That was all. This
stocking-heel, evidently the wallet of some poor traveller, held one
silver piece of the value of ten cents, two coppers, and a newspaper
clipping, old and faded. It was a copy of the Proclamation of
Emancipation to the Negro slaves of America, beginning, "I, Abraham
Lincoln," and bearing date Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-three.
[Illustration]