On a railroad, as everywhere else, one meets with decidedly "rich"
characters--those whose every act is mirth-provoking, and who, as the
Irishman said, "can't open their mouths without putting their fut in
it." Such an one was Billy Brown, who has been, for nearly thirteen
years, a brakeman on one road; who has run through and escaped many
dangers; who has seen many an old comrade depart this life for--let
us hope, a better one. Scarce an accident has happened on the road in
whose employ he has been so long, but Billy has somehow been there; and
always has Billy been kind to his dying friends. Many a one of them
has breathed out his last sigh in Billy's ear; and I have often heard
him crooning out some wild Irish laments (for Billy is a full-blooded
Patlander), as he held in his lap the head of some of his comrades
whose life was fast ebbing away from a mangled limb. I well remember
one time, when one of Billy's particular cronies, Mike--the other name
has escaped my memory--was missing from the train to which he was
attached. A telegraphic dispatch was sent to the last station to see
if he was left there; but, no! he was seen to get aboard the train as
it left the station. So the conclusion was clear that Mike had fallen
off somewhere on the road. Half a dozen of us, Billy with the rest,
jumped into a hand-car, and went back to find him. We went once over
the road without seeing any thing; but, as we came back, on passing the
signboard which said "80 rods to the drawbridge," we saw some blood on
it; and, on looking down under the trestlework, we saw poor Mike's body
lying half in the water and half on the rocks. It was but an instant
ere we were down there; but the first look convinced us that he was
dead. As the train was passing over the bridge, he had incautiously
put out his head to look ahead, and it had come in contact with the
signboard, and was literally smashed flat. No sooner had the full
conviction that Mike was dead taken possession of Billy, than he whops
down on his knees, and commences kissing the fellow's bloody face, at
the same time, with many tears, apostrophizing his body somewhat after
this fashion: "Oh! wirra, wirra, Mike dear! Mike dear! and is this the
way ye're afther dyin' to git yer bloody ould hed smashed in wid a
dirty old guideboord?"
We all felt sad, and sympathized fully with Billy's grief; but the
ludicrousness with which he expressed it, was too much for any of us;
and we turned away, not to hide a tear, but to suppress a smile, and
choke down a laugh.
But Billy was very clannish; and, to use his own expression, "the
passenger might go hang, if there was any of the railroad byes in the
muss." But as soon as Billy's fears as to any of his comrades being
injured were allayed, no man could be more efficient than he in giving
aid to anybody. Billy was true to duty, and never forgot what to do,
if it was only in the usual routine of his business. Outside of that,
however, he could commit as many Irish bulls as any one.
I well remember one night I had the night freight to haul. We were
going along pretty good jog, when the bell rang for me to stop. I
stopped and looked back to see what could be the matter. I saw no stir;
so after waiting awhile, I started back to see if I could find any
one. After getting back about twenty cars, I found that the train was
broken in two, and that the rest of the cars were away back out of
sight. I hallooed to my fireman to bring a light, and started on foot
back around the curve, to see where they were. I got to the curve, and
saw a light coming up the track towards me; the man who carried it was
evidently running as fast as he could. I stopped to see who it was; and
in a few moments he approached near enough to hail me--when, mistaking
me for a trackman, and without slackening his speed the least, Billy
Brown--for it was he--bellowed out, with a voice like a stentor, only
broken by his grampus-like blowing, "I say, I say, did yees see iver
innything of a train goin' for Albany like h--l jist now?" I believe I
never did laugh quite so heartily in my life, as I did then; and Billy,
turning around, addressed me in the most aggrieved manner possible,
saying: "Pon me sowl now, Shanghi, its mighty mane of yees to be
scarin' the life out of me wid that laff of yours, an' I strivin' as
hard as iver I could to catch up wid yees, and bring yees back, to take
the resht of yere train which ye were afther lavin in the road a bit
back."
Another adventure of Billy's, at which we liked to have killed
ourselves with laughter, and Billy himself liked to have died from
fright, occurred in this wise: I was taking the stock train down the
road one very dark night, and Billy was one of the brakemen. Attached
to the rear of the train were five empty emigrant cars, which we were
hauling over the road. I was behind time, and was running about as
fast as I could, to make up the lost time; when the bell rang for me
to stop. I stopped; and going back to see what was the matter, I found
that two of the emigrant cars had become detached from the train, and
been switched off into the river, just there very close to the track
and very deep; and there they lay, one of them clear out of sight,
and the other cocked up at an angle of about 45 degrees, with one end
sticking out of the water about six feet. On looking around, I found
that all the men were there on hand, except Billy; and he was nowhere
to be found. We at last concluded that he must have been in the cars
that were thrown into the river, and was drowned. But in this we were
soon shown our error; for, from the car that was sticking out of the
water, came a confused sound of splashing, and praying, and swearing,
which soon convinced us that Billy was at least not dead. We hallooed
at him, and asked him if he was hurt. His answer was, "Divil a hurt,
but right nigh drowned; an how'll I get out o' this?" We told him to
get out of the door. "But it's locked." "Unlock it then." "Shure, frow
me a kay an' I will." "Where is your own key?" "Divil a wan o' me
knows. Gone drownded I ixpect." "How deep is the water where you are,
Billy?" "Up till me chin, an' the tide a risin'. Oh! murther, byes,
hilp me out o' this; for I'm kilt intirely wid the wet and the cowld
and the shock til me syshtem----" But we told him we couldn't help him,
and that he must crawl out of a window. "Howly Moses," says Billy, "an'
don't ye know these is imigrant cars, an' the windows all barred across
to kape thim fules from sticking out their heads? an' how'll I get out?
Byes, byes, wad ye see me drown, an' I so close to land, an' in a car
to bute? Ah! now cease yere bladgin, an' hilp me out o' this." After
bothering him to our hearts' content, we got a plank, and crawled out
to the car, only about ten feet from shore, and cutting a hole in the
top, soon had Billy at liberty.