FLIMDUNK SIDING
After a little while, Pee-wee fell asleep, but the rest of us stayed
awake, because we wanted to see what kind of a place we were going to
stop at.
For about fifteen or twenty minutes the engine pushed us awfully slow,
then we stopped, and a couple of men went between our car and the engine
and did something to that long iron bar. We watched them from the
platform. Then one of the men went through our car to the other platform
and the other one stayed on the platform near the engine. Another man
started along the track with a lantern.
"The plot grows thicker," I said; "what's going to happen now?"
"Search me," Connie said; "look around and see if you see Flimdunk
anywhere--not inside the car, you crazy Indian."
I was looking inside the car for it.
"How could we tell it if we saw it?" Connie asked us.
"Can't you tell a village when you see one? It'll look like a young
town," Westy said.
"The fireman didn't say anything about a town anyway," I told them; "he
just said Flimdunk Siding."
"Maybe that man is swinging the lantern so the town can get off the
track," Wig said; "anyhow, I bet something is going to happen."
It was pitch dark all around, except that the headlight of the
locomotive made a long shaft like a searchlight 'way far ahead, and we
could see the man walking along the track in that shaft, swinging his
lantern. Our car was all bright, too. It seemed awful lonesome where he
was going, far ahead in the dark. The locomotive kept going _pfff, pfff,
pfff_, just like a horse stamping his foot, because he's in a hurry to
start. It seemed kind of as if it didn't want to wait.
"Have we come to the siding?" I asked the man on the platform.
"You'll have to take the switch," he said.
"We wouldn't take anything that didn't belong to us," Connie said;
"you'll have to give it to us if you want us to take it."
"I don't care so much about having one, anyway," I said. I guess that
man thought we were crazy.
"We'll give you the run," he said.
"I wouldn't blame you for doing that if we took the switch," Wig told
him. Gee, he had to laugh.
Pretty soon the man who was far ahead began swinging his lantern around
in a circle. Then the engine gave a kind of a quick, shrill whistle, and
we started again. We went a little faster than before and then, all of a
sudden, we saw the engine standing quite a way off, and already the men
on our car were turning the hand brakes. Our car was rattling along all
by itself. In about half a minute, _kerlick, kerlick_, it went on a
switch and then the men began yanking on the brake handles for all they
were worth.
But I knew that old car all right, and its brakes were pretty near as
bad as its couplings.
"Oh, merrily, merrily on we roll," Connie began singing.
"What's the matter with this plaguey old boat?" one of the men said, all
the while bracing his feet and pulling and pulling on the wheel.
"It likes to go off on a hike by itself," I said; "you should worry.
When it stops, it stops."
"Well, it better stop pretty soon," he said, "or else----Here, get hold
of this wheel, you kids, and pull."
"Them brakes got about as much bite in 'em as a ki-oodle," the man said;
"how old is this old scow? 'Bout a hundred, I guess."
"This old car is all right," I told him; "a scout must have respect for
age--page something-or-other-scout handbook. We may be old ourselves
some day. What do we care, yo ho?"
He said, "Well, I hope the brakes on your tongue will work better than
they do now."
"The pleasure is mine," I told him.
Two of us were pulling away as hard as we could, helping one of the
trainmen, two were helping the man on the other platform, and Pee-wee
was sleeping peacefully inside with his head on the floor and one of his
legs sprawled up over the seat.
As well as I could see, we were rolling merrily along a track that
branched away from the main track. I thought that, because I couldn't
see the full blaze of the engine's headlight any more, and I knew we
were verging away from the railroad.
"Talk about prodigal sons," Westy said; "when this old car gets back
home, they ought to kill the fatted calf for it."
"Good night," I told him; "if the fatted calf gets on the track, he'll
be killed all right."
"Oh, boys, where do we go from here?" Wig began singing.
But those trainmen didn't seem to think it was much of a joke. All of a
sudden, we went rattling through an opening in a fence and I saw a
couple of big white things near us.
"They're tents," Westy said.
By now the car was slowing down and pretty soon it stopped right in
front of a big dark thing--a kind of a building. If we'd have gone fifty
feet more, we'd have bunked our nose right into it.
The trainman said, "That's the craziest old set of brakes I ever saw.
You'll have to be contented to stay right here, that's all;
twenty-three'll back in after you."
"Contented is our favorite nickname," I told him; "is this Flimdunk,
with the fence around it? It's a good idea--the place can't run away. I
hope they'll like us."
"Do you think we're intruding?" Westy said.
I guess those trainmen set us down for a lot of idiots. Anyway, they
didn't have to tell us so, because we admit it. They said that the
brakes were worn off so much that they didn't press hard against the
wheels, only sort of gentle, like. They were nice polite brakes.
One of the trainmen said he'd leave us a lantern so we could see to
talk; then they went back out through the fence and I could see their
lanterns making circles in the dark. Pretty soon we could hear the
engine puffing and all of a sudden, it gave a loud, shrill whistle. It
sounded as if the train was coming very slowly up toward the switch, but
in about a couple of minutes we could hear it rattling along, farther
and farther away, and going faster and faster.
"So long, old flyer," Westy called.
I said, "Listen! Listen to the sound it makes--_tk-ed, tk-ed, tk_----It
seems as if it's saying, 'twenty-three for yours,' doesn't it?"
"Skiddo, flyer!" Connie shouted; "anyhow, you were foiled by the Boy
Scouts."
That word _foiled_ reminded us of Pee-wee, so we went inside and looked
at him. I guess the stopping of the car had shaken him up some. His
head was way underneath the seat, one of his arms was halfway up on the
seat and one of his legs was on the movie outfit in the aisle.
It was a sight for a painter. I mean a sign painter.