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[Illustration: A PIECE OF ROPE WAS LOOPED DEFTLY ABOUT BART'S ARMS.
_Bart Stirling's Road to Success Page_ 217]
BART STIRLING'S ROAD TO SUCCESS
Or
The Young Express Agent
BY ALLEN CHAPMAN
AUTHOR OF "THE HEROES OF THE SCHOOL," "NED WILDING'S DISAPPEARANCE,"
"FRANK ROSCOE'S SECRET," "FENN MASTERSON'S DISCOVERY," "BART KEENE'S
HUNTING DAYS," ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
1908
* * * * *
THE BOYS' POCKET LIBRARY
BY ALLEN CHAPMAN
Cloth. Illustrated. Price per volume, 35 cents, postpaid.
THE HEROES OF THE SCHOOL
NED WILDING'S DISAPPEARANCE
FRANK ROSCOE'S SECRET
FENN MASTERSON'S DISCOVERY
BART KEENE'S HUNTING DAYS
BART STIRLING'S ROAD TO SUCCESS
WORKING HARD TO WIN
BOUND TO SUCCEED
THE YOUNG STOREKEEPER
NED BORDEN'S FIND
CUPPLES & LEON CO, Publishers, New York
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE THIRD OF JULY
II. "WAKING THE NATIVES"
III. COUNTING THE COST
IV. BLIND FOR LIFE
V. READY FOR BUSINESS
VI. GETTING "SATISFACTION"
VII. WAITING FOR TROUBLE
VIII. THE YOUNG EXPRESS AGENT
IX. COLONEL JEPTHA HARRINGTON
X. QUEER COMRADES
XI. "FORGET IT!"
XII. THE MYSTERIOUS MR. BAKER
XIII. "HIGHER STILL!"
XIV. MRS. HARRINGTON'S TRUNK
XV. AN EARLY "CALL"
XVI. AT FAULT
XVII. A FAINT CLEW
XVIII. A DUMB FRIEND
XIX. FOOLING THE ENEMY
XX. BART ON THE ROAD
XXI. A LIMB OF THE LAW
XXII. BART STIRLING, AUCTIONEER
XXIII. "GOING, GOING, GONE!"
XXIV. MR. BAKER'S BID
XXV. A NIGHT MESSAGE
XXVI. ON THE MIDNIGHT EXPRESS
XXVII. LATE VISITORS
XXVIII. THIRTY SECONDS OF TWELVE
XXIX. BROUGHT TO TIME
XXX. "STILL HIGHER!"
* * * * *
BART STIRLING'S ROAD TO SUCCESS
CHAPTER I
THE THIRD OF JULY
"You can't go in that room."
"Why can't I?"
"Because that's the orders; and you can't smoke in this room."
Bart Stirling spoke in a definite, manly fashion.
Lemuel Wacker dropped his hand from the door knob on which it rested,
and put his pipe in his pocket, but his shoulders hunched up and his
unpleasant face began to scowl.
"Ho!" he snorted derisively, "official of the company, eh? Running
things, eh?"
"I am--for the time being," retorted Bart, cheerfully.
"Well," said Wacker, with an ugly sidelong look, "I don't take
insolence from anyone with the big head. I reckon ten year's service
with the B. & M. entitles a man to know his rights."
"Very active service just now, Mr. Wacker?" insinuated Bart pleasantly.
Lem Wacker flushed and winced, for the pointed question struck home.
"I don't want no mistering!" he growled. "Lem's good enough for me. And
I don't take no call-down from any stuck-up kid, I want you to
understand that."
"You'd better get to the crossing if you're making any pretense of real
work," suggested Bart just then.
As he spoke Bart pointed through the open window across the tracks to
the switch shanty at the side of the street crossing.
A train was coming. Mr. Lemuel Wacker was "subbing" as extra for the
superannuated old cripple whose sole duty was to wave a flag as trains
went by. To this duty Wacker sprang with alacrity.
Bart dismissed the man from his mind, and, whistling a cheery tune, bent
over the book in which he had been writing for the past twenty minutes.
This was the register of the local express office of the B. & M., and
at present, as Bart had said, he was "running it."
The express shed was a one-story, substantial frame building having two
rooms. It stood in the center of a network of tracks close to the
freight depot and switch tower, and a platform ran its length front and
rear.
Framed by the window an active railroad panorama spread out, and beyond
that view the quaint town of Pleasantville.
Bart had spent all his young life here. He knew every nook and corner of
the place, and nearly every man, woman and child in the village.
Pleasantville did not belie its name to Bart's way of thinking. He voted
its people, its surroundings, and life in general there, as pleasant as
could well be.
Here he was born, and he had found nothing to complain of, although he
was what might be called a poor boy.
There were his mother, his two sisters and two small brothers at home,
and sometimes it took a good deal to go around, but Bart's father had a
steady job, and Bart himself was an agreeable, willing boy, just at the
threshold of doing something to earn a living and wide-awake for the
earliest opportunity.
Mr. Stirling had been express agent for the B. & M. for eight years,
and was counted a reliable, efficient employee of the company.
For some months, however, his health had not been of the best, and Bart
had been glad when he was impressed into service to relieve his father
when laid up with his occasional foe, the rheumatism, or to watch the
office at mealtimes.
Bart was on duty in this regard at the present time. It was about five
in the afternoon, but it was also the third of July, and that date, like
the twenty-fourth of December, was the busiest in the calendar for the
little express office.
All the afternoon Bart had worked at the desk or helped in getting out
packages and boxes for delivery.
A little handcart was among the office equipment, and very often Bart
did light delivering. On this especial day, however, in addition to the
regular freight, Fourth of July and general picnic and celebration goods
more than trebled the usual volume, and they had hired a local teamster
to assist them.
With the 4:20 train came a new consignment. The back room was now nearly
full of cases of fruit, a grand boxed-up display of fireworks for
Colonel Harrington, the village magnate, another for a local club, some
minor boxes for private family use, and extra orders from the city for
the village storekeepers.
It was an unusual and highly inflammable heap, and when tired Mr.
Sterling went home to snatch a bite of something to eat, and lazy Lem
Wacker came strolling into the place, pipe in full blast, Bart had not
hesitated to exercise his brief authority. A spark among that tinder
pile would mean sure and swift destruction. Besides, light-fingered Lem
Wacker was not to be trusted where things lay around loose.
So Bart had squelched him promptly and properly. The man for whom "Lem"
was good enough, was in his opinion pretty nearly good for nothing.
Bart made the last entry in the register with a satisfied smile and
strolled to the door stretching himself.
"Everything in apple-pie order so far as the books go," he observed. "I
expect it will be big hustle and bustle for an hour or two in the
morning, though."
Lem Wacker came slouching along. It was six o'clock, the quitting hour.
Lem was always on time on such occasions. The whistle from the shops had
ceased echoing, and, his dinner pail on his arm and filling his
inevitable pipe, he paused for a moment.
"Going to shut up shop?" he inquired with affected carelessness.
"I am going home, if that's what you mean," replied Bart--"as soon as my
father comes."
"Not feeling very well lately, eh?" continued Lem, his eyes roving in a
covetous way over the cozy office and the comfortable railroad armchair
Mr. Stirling used. "No wonder, he takes it too hard."
"Does he?" retorted Bart.
"You bet he does. Wish I had his job. I'd make people wait to suit my
ideas. How's the company to know or care if you break your neck to
accommodate people? Too honest, too."
"A man can't be too honest," asserted Bart.
"Can't he? Say, I'm an old railroader, I am, and I know the ropes. Why,
when I was running the express office at Corydon, we sampled everything
that came in. Crate of bananas--we had many a lunch, apples, cigars,
once in a while a live chicken, and always a couple of turkeys at
holiday time."
"And who paid for them?" inquired Bart bluntly.
"We didn't, and no questions asked."
"I am afraid your ideas will not make much impression on my father, if
that is what you are getting at," observed Bart, turning unceremoniously
from Wacker.
"Humph! you fellows ought to run a backwoods post office," disgustedly
grunted the latter, as he made off.
Bart had only to wait ten minutes when his father appeared. Except for a
slight limp and some pallor in his face, Mr. Stirling seemed in his
prime. He had kindly eyes and was always pleasant and smiling, even when
in pain.
"Well! well!" he cried briskly, with a gratified glance at his son after
looking over the register, "all the real hard work is done, the work
that always worries me, with my poor eyesight. Come up to the paymaster,
young man! There's an advance till salary day, and well you've earned
it."
Mr. Stirling took some money from his pocket. There was a silver dollar
and some loose change. Bart looked pleased, then quite grave, and he put
his hand resolutely behind him.
"I can't take it, father," he said. "You have a hard enough time, and I
ought to pay you for the experience I'm getting here instead of being
paid."
"Young man," spoke Mr. Stirling with affected sternness, but a
twinkling in his eye, "you take your half-pay, make tracks, enjoy
yourself, and don't worry about a trifle of a dollar or two. If you
happen to drop around this way about nine o'clock, I'll be glad of your
company home."
He slipped the money into Bart's pocket and playfully pushed him through
the doorway. Bart's heart was pretty full. He was alive with tenderness
and love for this loyal, patient parent who had not been over kindly
handled by the world in a money way.
Then a dozen loud explosions over on the hill, followed by boyish shouts
of enthusiasm, made Bart remember that he was a boy, with all a boy's
lively interest in the Fourth of July foremost in his thoughts, and he
bounded down the tracks like a whirlwind.