In the summer, fall, and early winter of 1863, I was tossing chips into
an old Hinkley insider up in New England, for an engineer by the name of
James Dillon. Dillon was considered as good a man as there was on the
road: careful, yet fearless, kindhearted, yet impulsive, a man whose
friends would fight for him and whose enemies hated him right royally.
Dillon took a great notion to me, and I loved him as a father; the fact
of the matter is, he was more of a father to me than I had at home, for
my father refused to be comforted when I took to railroading, and I
could not see him more than two or three times a year at the most--so
when I wanted advice I went to Jim.
I was a young fellow then, and being without a home at either end of
the run, was likely to drop into pitfalls. Dillon saw this long before I
did. Before I had been with him three months, he told me one day, coming
in, that it was against his principles to teach locomotive-running to a
young man who was likely to turn out a drunkard or gambler and disgrace
the profession, and he added that I had better pack up my duds and come
up to his house and let "mother" take care of me--and I went.
I was not a guest there: I paid my room-rent and board just as I should
have done anywhere else, but I had all the comforts of a home, and
enjoyed a thousand advantages that money could not buy. I told Mrs.
Dillon all my troubles, and found kindly sympathy and advice; she
encouraged me in all my ambitions, mended my shirts, and went with me
when I bought my clothes. Inside of a month, I felt like one of the
family, called Mrs. Dillon "mother," and blessed my lucky stars that I
had found them.
Dillon had run a good many years, and was heartily tired of it, and he
seldom passed a nice farm that he did not call my attention to it,
saying: "Jack, now there's comfort; you just wait a couple of
years--I've got my eye on the slickest little place, just on the edge of
M----, that I am saving up my pile to buy. I'll give you the 'Roger
William' one of these days, Jack, say good evening to grief, and me and
mother will take comfort. Think of sleeping till eight o'clock,--and no
poor steamers, Jack, no poor steamers!" And he would reach over, and
give my head a gentle duck as I tried to pitch a curve to a front corner
with a knot: those Hinkleys were powerful on cold water.
In Dillon's household there was a "system" of financial management. He
always gave his wife just half of what he earned; kept ten dollars for
his own expenses during the month, out of which he clothed himself; and
put the remainder in the bank. It was before the days of high wages,
however, and even with this frugal management, the bank account did not
grow rapidly. They owned the house in which they lived, and out of her
half "mother" had to pay all the household expenses and taxes, clothe
herself and two children, and send the children to school. The oldest, a
girl of some sixteen years, was away at normal school, and the boy,
about thirteen or fourteen, was at home, going to the public school and
wearing out more clothes than all the rest of the family.
Dillon told me that they had agreed on the financial plan followed in
the family before their marriage, and he used to say that for the life
of him he did not see how "mother" got along so well on the allowance.
When he drew a small month's pay he would say to me, as we walked home:
"No cream in the coffee this month, Jack." If it was unusually large, he
would say: "Plum duff and fried chicken for a Sunday dinner." He
insisted that he could detect the rate of his pay in the food, but this
was not true--it was his kind of fun. "Mother" and I were fast friends.
She became my banker, and when I wanted an extra dollar, I had to ask
her for it and tell what I wanted it for, and all that.
Along late in November, Jim had to make an extra one night on another
engine, which left me at home alone with "mother" and the boy--I had
never seen the girl--and after swearing me to be both deaf, dumb, and
blind, "mother" told me a secret. For ten years she had been saving
money out of her allowance, until the amount now reached nearly $2,000.
She knew of Jim's life ambition to own a farm, and she had the matter in
hand, if I would help her. Of course I was head over heels into the
scheme at once. She wanted to buy the farm near M----, and give Jim the
deed for a Christmas present; and Jim mustn't even suspect.
Jim never did.
The next trip I had to buy some underclothes: would "mother" tell me how
to pick out pure wool? Why, bless your heart, no, she wouldn't, but
she'd just put on her things and go down with me. Jim smoked and read at
home.
We went straight to the bank where Jim kept his money, asked for the
President, and let him into the whole plan. Would he take $2,100 out of
Jim's money, unbeknown to Jim, and pay the balance of the price of the
farm over what "mother" had?
No, he would not; but he would advance the money for the purpose--have
the deeds sent to him, and he would pay the price--that was fixed.
Then I hatched up an excuse and changed off with the fireman on the
M---- branch, and spent the best part of two lay-overs fixing up things
with the owner of the farm and arranging to hold back the recording of
the deeds until after Christmas. Every evening there was some part of
the project to be talked over, and "mother" and I held many whispered
conversations. Once Jim, smiling, observed that, if I had any hair on my
face, he would be jealous.
I remember that it was on the 14th day of December, 1863, that payday
came. I banked my money with "mother," and Jim, as usual, counted out
his half to that dear old financier.
"Uncle Sam'd better put that 'un in the hospital," observed Jim, as he
came to a ragged ten-dollar bill. "Goddess of Liberty pretty near got
her throat cut there; guess some reb has had hold of her," he continued,
as he held up the bill. Then laying it down, he took out his pocket-book
and cut off a little three-cornered strip of pink court-plaster, and
made repairs on the bill.
"Mother" pocketed her money greedily, and before an hour I had that very
bill in my pocket to pay the recording fees in the courthouse at M----.
The next day Jim wanted to use more money than he had in his pocket, and
asked me to lend him a dollar. As I opened my wallet to oblige him, that
patched bill showed up. Jim put his finger on it, and then turning me
around towards him, he said: "How came you by that?"
I turned red--I know I did--but I said, cool enough, "'Mother' gave it
to me in change."
"That's a lie," he said, and turned away.
The next day we were more than two-thirds of the way home before he
spoke; then, as I straightened up after a fire, he said: "John
Alexander, when we get in, you go to Aleck (the foreman) and get changed
to some other engine."
There was a queer look on his face; it was not anger, it was not
sorrow--it was more like pain. I looked the man straight in the eye, and
said: "All right, Jim; it shall be as you say--but, so help me God, I
don't know what for. If you will tell me what I have done that is wrong,
I will not make the same mistake with the next man I fire for."
He looked away from me, reached over and started the pump, and said:
"Don't you know?"
"No, sir, I have not the slightest idea."
"Then you stay, and I'll change," said he, with a determined look, and
leaned out of the window, and said no more all the way in.
I did not go home that day. I cleaned the "Roger William" from the top
of that mountain of sheet-iron known as a wood-burner stack to the back
casting on the tank, and tried to think what I had done wrong, or not
done at all, to incur such displeasure from Dillon. He was in bed when
I went to the house that evening, and I did not see him until breakfast.
He was in his usual spirits there, but on the way to the station, and
all day long, he did not speak to me. He noticed the extra cleaning, and
carefully avoided tarnishing any of the cabfittings;--but that awful
quiet! I could hardly bear it, and was half sick at the trouble, the
cause of which I could not understand. I thought that, if the patched
bill had anything to do with it, Christmas morning would clear it up.
Our return trip was the night express, leaving the terminus at 9:30. As
usual, that night I got the engine out, oiled, switched out the cars,
and took the train to the station, trimmed my signals and headlight, and
was all ready for Jim to pull out. Nine o'clock came, and no Jim; at
9:10 I sent to his boarding-house. He had not been there. He did not
come at leaving time--he did not come at all. At ten o'clock the
conductor sent to the engine-house for another engineer, and at 10:45,
instead of an engineer, a fireman came, with orders for John Alexander
to run the "Roger William" until further orders,--I never fired a
locomotive again.
I went over that road the saddest-hearted man that ever made a maiden
trip. I hoped there would be some tidings of Jim at home--there were
none. I can never forget the blow it was to "mother;" how she braced up
on account of her children--but oh, that sad face! Christmas came, and
with it the daughter, and then there were two instead of one: the boy
was frantic the first day, and playing marbles the next.
Christmas day there came a letter. It was from Jim--brief and cold
enough--but it was such a comfort to "mother." It was directed to Mary
J. Dillon, and bore the New York post-mark. It read:
"Uncle Sam is in need of men, and those who lose with Venus may win
with Mars. Enclosed papers you will know best what to do with. Be a
mother to the children--you have _three_ of them.
"JAMES DILLON."
He underscored the three--he was a mystery to me. Poor "mother!" She
declared that no doubt "poor James's head was affected." The papers with
the letter were a will, leaving her all, and a power of attorney,
allowing her to dispose of or use the money in the bank. Not a line of
endearment or love for that faithful heart that lived on love, asked
only for love, and cared for little else.
That Christmas was a day of fasting and prayer for us. Many letters did
we send, many advertisements were printed, but we never got a word from
James Dillon, and Uncle Sam's army was too big to hunt in. We were a
changed family: quieter and more tender of one another's feelings, but
changed.
In the fall of '64 they changed the runs around, and I was booked to run
in to M----. Ed, the boy, was firing for me. There was no reason why
"mother" should stay in Boston, and we moved out to the little farm.
That daughter, who was a second "mother" all over, used to come down to
meet us at the station with the horse, and I talked "sweet" to her; yet
at a certain point in the sweetness I became dumb.
Along in May, '65, "mother" got a package from Washington. It contained
a tintype of herself; a card with a hole in it (made evidently by having
been forced over a button), on which was her name and the old address in
town; then there was a ring and a saber, and on the blade of the saber
was etched, "Presented to Lieutenant Jas. Dillon, for bravery on the
field of battle." At the bottom of the parcel was a note in a strange
hand, saying simply, "Found on the body of Lieutenant Dillon after the
battle of Five Forks."
Poor "mother!" Her heart was wrung again, and again the scalding tears
fell. She never told her suffering, and no one ever knew what she bore.
Her face was a little sadder and sweeter, her hair a little whiter--that
was all.
I am not a bit superstitious--don't believe in signs or presentiments or
prenothings--but when I went to get my pay on the 14th day of December,
1866, it gave me a little start to find in it the bill bearing the
chromo of the Goddess of Liberty with the little three-cornered piece of
court-plaster that Dillon had put on her wind-pipe. I got rid of it at
once, and said nothing to "mother" about it; but I kept thinking of it
and seeing it all the next day and night.
On the night of the 16th, I was oiling around my Black Maria to take out
a local leaving our western terminus just after dark, when a tall, slim
old gentleman stepped up to me and asked if I was the engineer. I don't
suppose I looked like the president: I confessed, and held up my torch,
so I could see his face--a pretty tough-looking face. The white mustache
was one of that military kind, reinforced with whiskers on the right and
left flank of the mustache proper. He wore glasses, and one of the
lights was ground glass. The right cheek-bone was crushed in, and a red
scar extended across the eye and cheek; the scar looked blue around the
red line because of the cold.
"I used to be an engineer before the war," said he. "Do you go to
Boston!"
"No, to M----."
"M----! I thought that was on a branch."
"It is, but is now an important manufacturing point, with regular trains
from there to each end of the main line."
"When can I get to Boston?"
"Not till Monday now; we run no through Sunday trains. You can go to
M---- with me to-night, and catch a local to Boston in the morning."
He thought a minute, and then said, "Well, yes; guess I had better. How
is it for a ride?"
"Good; just tell the conductor that I told you to get on."
"Thanks; that's clever. I used to know a soldier who used to run up in
this country," said the stranger, musing. "Dillon; that's it, Dillon."
"I knew him well," said I. "I want to hear about him."
"Queer man," said he, and I noticed he was eying me pretty sharp.
"A good engineer."
"Perhaps," said he.
I coaxed the old veteran to ride on the engine--the first coal-burner I
had had. He seemed more than glad to comply. Ed was as black as a negro,
and swearing about coal-burners in general and this one in particular,
and made so much noise with his fire-irons after we started, that the
old man came over and sat behind me, so as to be able to talk.
[Illustration: "_I noticed his long, slim hand on the top of the
reverse-lever._"
(_Page 21._)]
The first time I looked around after getting out of the yard, I noticed
his long slim hand on the top of the reverse-lever. Did you ever notice
how it seems to make an ex-engineer feel better and more satisfied to
get his hand on the reverse-lever and feel the life-throbs of the great
giant under him? Why, his hand goes there by instinct--just as an
ambulance surgeon will feel for the heart of the boy with a broken leg.
I asked the stranger to "give her a whirl," and noticed with what eager
joy he took hold of her. I also observed with surprise that he seemed to
know all about "four-mile hill," where most new men got stuck. He caught
me looking at his face, and touching the scar, remarked: "A little love
pat, with the compliments of Wade Hampton's men." We talked on a good
many subjects, and got pretty well acquainted before we were over the
division, but at last we seemed talked out.
"Where does Dillon's folks live now?" asked the stranger, slowly, after
a time.
"M----," said I.