The fireman, the engineer's _left_-hand man, his trump card, without
whom it would be difficult for him to get over the road, is seen but
little, and thought but little of. He is usually dirty and greasy,
wearing a ragged pair of overalls, originally blue, but now embroidered
so with oil and dust, that they are become a smutty brown. Just before
the train leaves the station, you will see his face, down which streams
the perspiration, looking back, watching for the signal to start; for
this is one of his many duties. His head is usually ornamented (in
his opinion) with some outlandish cap or hat; though others regard it
as a fittingly outrageous cap-sheaf to his general dirty and outre
appearance. But little cares Mr. Fireman; he runs the fire-box of that
"machine." He feels pride in the whole engine; and when he sees any
one admiring its polished surface, gleaming so brightly in the sun,
flashing so swiftly by the farm-houses on the road (in each of which
Mr. Fireman has acquaintance of the opposite sex, to whom he must
needs swing his handkerchief), he feels a glow of honest satisfaction;
and the really splendid manner in which his efforts have caused it to
shine--which is evidently one great reason for the admiration bestowed
upon it--so fills him with self gratulation that, in his great modesty,
which he fears will be overcome if he stays there much longer watching
people as they admire his handiwork, and he be led to tell them all
about it, how he scrubbed and scoured to bring her to that pitch of
perfection--he turns away, and begins to pitch the wood about in the
most reckless manner imaginable; yet every stick goes just where he
wants it.
His aspirations (and he has them, my lily-handed friend, as well as
you, and perhaps, though not so elevated, more honorable than yours)
are, that he may, by attending to his own duties, so attract the
attention of the ones in authority that he may be placed in positions
where he can learn the business, and, by and by, himself have charge of
an engine as its runner. It does not seem a very high ambition; but,
to attain it, he undergoes a probation seldom of less than three,
frequently of seven or eight years, at the hardest kind of work,
performed, too, where dangers are thick around him, and his chances to
avert them very slim. His duties are manifold and various; but long
years of attendance to them makes them very monotonous and irksome, and
he would soon weary of them, did not the hope of one day being himself
sole master of the "iron horse," actuate him to renewed diligence and
continued efforts to excel. He is on duty longer than any other man
connected with the train. He must be on hand before the engine comes
out of the shop, to start a fire and see that all is right about the
engine. Usually he brings it out upon the track; and then, when all is
ready, he begins the laborious work of throwing wood; which amounts to
the handling of from four to seven cords of wood per diem, while the
engine and tender are pitching and rolling so that a "green-horn" would
find it hard work to stand on his feet, let alone having, while so
standing, to keep that fiery furnace supplied with fuel. The worse the
day, the more the snow or rain blows, the harder his work. His hands
become calloused with the numerous wounds he receives from splinters
on the wood. He it is who has to go out on the runboard and oil the
valves, while the engine is running full speed. No matter how cold the
wind may blow, how rain, hail, sleet, or snow may beat down upon him,
covering every thing with ice, nor how dark the night, out there he
must go and crawl along the slippery side of the engine to do his work.
At stations he must take water, and when at last the train arrives at
its destination, and others are ready to go home, he must stay. If a
little too much wood is in the fire-box, he must take it out, and then
go to work cleaning and scouring the dust and rust from off the bright
work and from the boiler. Every bit of cleaning in the cab and above
the runboard, including the cylinders and steam-chest, must be done by
him; and any one who will look at the fancy-work on some of our modern
locomotives, can judge something of what he has to do after the day's
work on the road is done. Every thing is brass, or covered with brass;
and all must be kept polished like a mirror, or the fireman is hauled
over the coals.
For performing these manifold duties, he receives the magnificent
sum of (usually) thirty dollars per month; and he knows no Sundays,
no holidays--on long roads, he scarcely knows sleep. He has not the
responsibility resting on him that there is upon the engineer; but
it is required of him, when not otherwise engaged with his duty of
firing, to assist the engineer in keeping a lookout ahead. His position
is one of the most dangerous on the train, as is proved by the frequent
occurrence of accidents, where only the fireman is killed; and his
only obituary, no matter how earnest he may have been, how faithful in
the performance of his duties, is an item in the telegraphic reports,
that _a fireman was killed_ in such a railroad smash. He may have been
one of nature's noblemen. A fond mother and sweet sisters may have
been dependent on his scanty earnings for their support. No matter;
the great surging tide of humanity that daily throngs these avenues
of travel, has not time to inquire after, nor sympathy to waste upon,
a greasy wood-passer, whom they regard as simply a sort of piece in
the machinery of the road, not half so essential as a valve or bolt,
for if he be lost, his place can be at once supplied; but if a bolt
or other essential piece of the iron machinery give out, it will most
likely cause a vexatious delay. Once in a while a fireman performs some
heroic act that brings him into a momentary notoriety, and opens the
eyes of the few who may be cognizant of the case, to the fact that, on
a railroad, all men are in danger, and that the most humble of them
may perform some self-sacrificing deed that will, at the expense of his
own, save many other lives.
In a collision that occurred at a station on one of the roads in New
York state, the engineer, a relative of some of the managers of the
road, who had fired only half so long as the man then firing for him,
jumped from the engine, leaving it to run at full speed into the hind
end of a train standing on a branch track, of which the switch was
wrong; not doing a single thing to avert or mitigate the calamity;
fearing only for his own precious neck, which a hemp cravat would
ornament, to the edification of the world. The fireman sprang at once
to the post vacated by the engineer, reversed the engine, opened the
sand-box valve, and rode into the hind end of that train; losing, in so
doing, a leg and an arm. He has been most munificently rewarded for his
heroism, being now employed to attend a crossing and hold a flag for
passing trains, and receiving the princely compensation of twenty-five
dollars per month; while the engineer, who deserted his post and
left all to _kind Providence_, is running on the road at a salary of
seventy-five per month.