It's noon when Thirty-five is due,
An' she comes on time like a flash of light,
An' you hear her whistle "Too-tee-too!"
Long 'fore the pilot swings in sight.
Bill Madden's drivin' her in to-day,
An' he's calling his sweetheart far away--
Gertrude Hurd lives down by the mill;
You might see her blushin'; she knows it's Bill.
"Tudie, tudie! Toot-ee! Tudie, tudie! Tu!"
Six-five, A.M. there's a local comes,
Makes up at Bristol, runnin' east;
An' the way her whistle sings and hums
Is a livin' caution to man and beast.
Every one knows who Jack White calls,--
Little Lou Woodbury, down by the falls;
Summer or Winter, always the same,
She hears her lover callin' her name--
"Lou-ie! Lou-ie! Lou-iee!"
But at one fifty-one, old Sixty-four--
Boston express, runs east, clear through--
Drowns her rattle and rumble and roar
With the softest whistle that ever blew.
An' away on the furthest edge of town
Sweet Sue Winthrop's eyes of brown
Shine like the starlight, bright and clear,
When she hears the whistle of Abel Gear,
"You-oo! Su-u-u-u-u-e!"
Along at midnight a freight comes in,
Leaves Berlin sometime--I don't know when;
But it rumbles along with a fearful din
Till it reaches the Y-switch there and then
The clearest notes of the softest bell
That out of a brazen goblet fell
Wake Nellie Minton out of her dreams;
To her like a wedding-bell it seems--
"Nell, Nell, Nell! Nell, Nell, Nell!"
Tom Willson rides on the right-hand side,
Givin' her steam at every stride;
An' he touches the whistle, low an' clear,
For Lulu Gray on the hill, to hear--
"Lu-Lu! Loo-Loo! Loo-oo!"
So it goes all day an' all night
Till the old folks have voted the thing a bore;
Old maids and bachelors say it ain't right
For folks to do courtin' with such a roar.
But the engineers their kisses will blow
From a whistle valve to the girls they know,
An' stokers the name of their sweethearts tell;
With the "Too-too-too" and the swinging bell.
_R.J. Burdette._