ALLAN PROVES HIS METAL
As Allan dashed forward toward the child, he saw the engineer, his
face livid, reverse his engine and jerk open the sand-box; the sand
spurted forth under the drivers, whirling madly backwards in the
midst of a shower of sparks, but sliding relentlessly down upon the
terror-stricken child. It was over in an instant—afterward, the boy
could never tell how it happened—he knew only that he stooped and
caught the child from under the very wheels of the engine, just as
something struck him a terrific blow on the leg and hurled him to
one side.
He was dimly conscious of holding the little one close in his arms
that she might not be injured, then he struck the ground with a
crash that left him dazed and shaken. When he struggled to his feet,
the engineer had jumped down from his cab and Welsh was speeding
toward them across the tracks.
“Hurt?” asked the engineer.
“I guess not—not much;” and Allan stooped to rub his leg. “Something
hit me here.”
“Yes—the footboard. Knocked you off the track. I had her pretty near
stopped, or they’d be another story.”
Allan turned to Welsh, who came panting up, and placed the child in
his arms.
“I guess she’s not hurt,” he said, with a wan little smile.
But Jack’s emotion had quite mastered him for the moment.
“Mamie!” he cried, gathering her to him. “My little girl!” And the
great tears shattered down over his cheeks upon the child’s dress.
The others stood looking on, understanding, sympathetic. The fireman
even turned away to rub his sleeve furtively across his eyes, for he
was a very young man and quite new to railroading.
The moment passed, and Welsh gripped back his self-control, as he
turned to Allan and held out his great hand.
“You’ve got nerve,” he said. “We won’t fergit it—Mary an’ me. Come
on home—it’s your home now, as well as ours.”
Half-way across the tracks they met Mary, who, after one shrill
scream of anguish at sight of her darling’s peril, had started
wildly down the path to the gate, though she knew she must arrive
too late. She had seen the rescue, and now, with streaming eyes, she
threw her arms around Allan and kissed him.
“My brave boy!” she cried. “He’s our boy, now, ain’t he, Jack, as
long as he wants t’ stay?”
“That’s jest what I was tellin’ him, Mary dear,” said Jack.
“But he’s limpin’,” she cried. “What’s th’ matter? Y’re not hurted,
Allan?”
“Not very badly,” answered the boy. “No bones broken—just a knock on
the leg that took the skin off.”
“Come on home this instant,” commanded Mary, “an’ we’ll see.”
“Ain’t y’ goin’ t’ kiss Mamie?” questioned Jack.
“She don’t deserve t’ be kissed!” protested her mother. “She’s been
a bad girl—how often have I told her never t’ lave th’ yard?”
Mamie was weeping bitter tears of repentance, and her mother
suddenly softened and caught her to her breast.
“I—I won’t be bad no more!” sobbed Mamie.
“I should hope not! An’ what d’ y’ say t’ Allan? If it hadn’t ’a’
been fer him, you’d ’a’ been ground up under th’ wheels.”
“I—I lubs him!” cried Mamie, with a very tender look at our hero.
She held up her lips, and Allan bent and kissed them.
“Well, m’ boy,” laughed Jack, as the triumphal procession moved on
again toward the house, “you seem t’ have taken this family by
storm, fer sure!”
“Come along!” cried Mary. “Mebbe th’ poor lad’s hurted worse’n he
thinks.”
She hurried him along before her up the path, sat him down in a
chair, and rolled up his trousers leg.
“It’s nothing,” protested Allan. “It’s nothing—it’s not worth
worrying about.”
“_Ain’t_ it!” retorted Mary, with compressed lips, removing shoe and
sock and deftly cutting away the blood-stained underwear. “_Ain’t_
it? You poor boy, look at that!”
And, indeed, it was rather an ugly-looking wound that lay revealed.
The flesh had been crushed and torn by the heavy blow, and was
bleeding and turning black.
“It’s a mercy it didn’t break your leg!” she added. “Jack, you
loon!” she went on, with a fierceness assumed to keep herself from
bursting into tears, “don’t stand starin’ there, but bring me a
basin o’ hot water, an’ be quick about it!”
Jack _was_ quick about it, and in a few moments the wound was washed
and nicely dressed with a cooling lotion which Mary produced from a
cupboard.
“I keep it fer Jack,” Mary explained, as she spread it tenderly over
the wound. “He’s allers gittin’ pieces knocked off o’ him. Now how
does it feel, Allan darlint?” “It feels fine,” Allan declared. “It
doesn’t hurt a bit. It’ll be all right by morning.”
“By mornin’!” echoed Mary, indignantly. “I reckon y’ think yer goin’
out on th’ section t’-morrer!”
“Why, of course. I’ve got to go. We’re getting it ready for the
Irish Brigade. We’ve got to win that prize!”
“Prize!” cried Mary. “Much I care fer th’ prize! But there! I won’t
quarrel with y’ now. Kin y’ walk?”
“Of course I can walk,” and Allan rose to his feet.
“Well, then, you men git ready fer supper. I declare it’s got
cold—I’ll have t’ warm it up ag’in! An’ I reckon I’ll put on a
little somethin’ extry jest t’ celebrate!”
She put on several things extra, and there was a regular
thanksgiving feast in the little Welsh home that evening, with Allan
in the place of honour, and Mamie looking at him adoringly from
across the table. Probably not a single one of the employés of the
road would have hesitated to do what he had done,—indeed, to risk
his life for another’s is the ordinary duty of a railroad man,—but
that did not lessen the merit of the deed in the eyes of Mamie’s
parents. And for the first time in many days, Allan was quite happy,
too. He felt that he was making himself a place in the world—and,
sweeter than all, a place in the hearts of the people with whom his
life was cast.
But the injury was a more serious one than he had been willing to
admit. When he tried to get out of bed in the morning, he found his
leg so stiff and sore that he could scarcely move it. He set his
teeth and managed to dress himself and hobble down-stairs, but his
white face showed the agony he was suffering.
“Oh, Allan!” cried Mary, flying to him and helping him to a chair.
“What did y’ want t’ come down fer? Why didn’t y’ call me?”
“I don’t want to be such a nuisance as all that!” the boy protested.
“But I’m afraid I can’t go to work to-day.”
Mary sniffed scornfully.
“No—nor to-morrer!” she said. “You’re goin’ t’ stay right in that
chair!”
She flew around, making him more comfortable, and Allan was coddled
that day as he had not been for a long time. Whether it was the
nursing or the magic qualities of Mary’s lotion, his leg was very
much better by night, and the next morning was scarcely sore at all.
The quickness of the healing—for it was quite well again in three or
four days—was due in no small part to Allan’s healthy young blood,
but he persisted in giving all the credit to Mary.
After that, Allan noticed a shade of difference in the treatment
accorded him by the other men. Heretofore he had been a stranger—an
outsider. Now he was so no longer. He had proved his right to
consideration and respect. He was “th’ boy that saved Jack Welsh’s
kid.” Report of the deed penetrated even to the offices where dwelt
the men who ruled the destinies of the division, and the
superintendent made a mental note of the name for future reference.
The train-master, too, got out from his desk a many-paged,
much-thumbed book, indexed from first to last, and, under the letter
“W,” wrote a few lines. The records of nearly a thousand men, for
good and bad, were in that book, and many a one, hauled up “on the
carpet” to be disciplined, had been astonished and dismayed by the
train-master’s familiarity with his career.
Of all the men in the gang, after the foreman, Allan found Reddy
Magraw the most lovable, and the merry, big-hearted Irishman took a
great liking to the boy. He lived in a little house not far from the
Welshes, and he took Allan home with him one evening to introduce
him to Mrs. Magraw and the “childer.” The former was a somewhat
faded little woman, worn down by hard work and ceaseless
self-denial, but happy despite it all, and the children were as
healthy and merry a set of young scalawags as ever rolled about upon
a sanded floor. There were no carpets and only the most necessary
furniture,—a stove, two beds, a table, and some chairs, for there
was little money left after feeding and clothing that ever hungry
swarm,—but everywhere there was a scrupulous, almost painful,
cleanliness. And one thing the boy learned from this visit and
succeeding ones—that what he had considered poverty was not poverty
at all, and that brave and cheerful hearts can light up any home.
His trunk arrived from the storage house at Cincinnati in due time,
affording him a welcome change of clothing, while Mrs. Welsh set
herself to work at once sewing on missing buttons, darning socks,
patching trousers—doing the hundred and one things which always need
to be done to the clothing of a motherless boy. Indeed, it might be
fairly said that he was motherless no longer, so closely had she
taken him to her heart.
Sunday came at last, with its welcome relief from toil. They lay
late in bed that morning, making up lost rest, revelling in the
unaccustomed luxury of leisure, and in the afternoon Jack took the
boy for a tour through the shops, swarming with busy life on
week-days, but now deserted, save for an occasional watchman. And
here Allan got, for the first time, a glimpse of one great
department of a railroad’s management which most people know nothing
of. In the first great room, the “long shop,” half a dozen disabled
engines were hoisted on trucks and were being rebuilt. Back of this
was the foundry, where all the needed castings were made, from the
tiniest bolt to the massive frame upon which the engine-boiler
rests. Then there was the blacksmith shop, with its score of forges
and great steam-hammer, that could deliver a blow of many tons; and
next to this the lathe-room, where the castings from the foundry
were shaved and planed and polished to exactly the required size and
shape; and still farther on was the carpenter shop, with its maze of
woodworking machinery, most wonderful of all, in its nearly human
intelligence.
Beyond the shop was the great coal chute, where the tender of an
engine could be heaped high with coal in an instant by simply
pulling a lever; then the big water-tanks, high in air, filled with
water pumped from the river half a mile away; and last of all, the
sand-house, where the sand-boxes of the engines were carefully
replenished before each trip. How many lives had been saved by that
simple device, which enabled the wheels to grip the track and stop
the train! How many might be sacrificed if, at a critical moment,
the sand-box of the engine happened to be empty! It was a startling
reflection—that even upon this little cog in the great machine—this
thoughtless boy, who poured the sand into the boxes—so much
depended.
Bright and early Monday morning they were out again on Twenty-one.
Wednesday was inspection, and they knew that up and down those two
hundred miles of track hand-cars were flying back and forth, and
every inch of the roadway was being examined by eyes severely
critical. They found many things to do, things which Allan would
never have thought of, but which appealed at once to the anxious
eyes of the foreman.
About the middle of the afternoon, Welsh saw a figure emerge from a
grove of trees beside the road and come slouching toward him. As it
drew nearer, he recognized Dan Nolan.
“Mister Welsh,” began Nolan, quite humbly, “can’t y’ give me a place
on th’ gang ag’in?”
“No,” said Jack, curtly, “I can’t. Th’ gang’s full.”
“That there kid’s no account,” protested Nolan, with a venomous
glance at Allan. “I’ll take his place.”
“No, you won’t, Dan Nolan!” retorted Jack. “He’s a better man than
you are, any day.”
“He is, is he?” sneered Nolan. “We’ll see about that!”
“An’ if you so much as harm a hair o’ him,” continued Jack, with
clenched fists, “I’ll have it out o’ your hide, two fer one—jest
keep that in mind.”
Nolan laughed mockingly, but he also took the precaution to retreat
to a safe distance from Jack’s threatening fists.
“Y’ won’t give me a job, then?” he asked again.
“Not if you was th’ last man on earth!”
“All right!” cried Nolan, getting red in the face with anger, which
he no longer made any effort to suppress. “All right! I’ll fix you
an’ th’ kid, too! You think y’re smart; think y’ll win th’ section
prize! Ho, ho! I guess not! Not this trip! Purty section-foreman you
are! I’ll show you!”
Jack didn’t answer, but he stopped and picked up a stone; and Nolan
dived hastily back into the grove again.
“He’s a big coward,” said Jack, throwing down the stone disgustedly,
and turning back to his work. “Don’t let him scare y’, Allan.”
“He didn’t scare me,” answered Allan, quietly, and determined to
give a good account of himself should Nolan ever attempt to molest
him.
But Jack was not as easy in his mind as he pretended; he knew Nolan,
and believed him quite capable of any treacherous meanness. So he
kept Allan near him; and if Nolan was really lurking in the bushes
anywhere along the road, he had no opportunity for mischief.
The next morning Jack took his men out directly to the western end
of the section, and came back very slowly, stopping here and there
to put a finishing touch to the work. Even Reddy was enthusiastic
over the condition of the section.
“It’s foin as silk!” he said, looking back over the road they had
just traversed. “Ef we don’t git th’ prize this toime, it’s because
some other feller’s a lot smarter ’n we are!”