“Think we’ll get round her all right now?” he asks.
“Oh, yes,” says the conductor shaking his snowy clothes.
The guard goes out. He, too, carries a weight of snow on his coat.
Says the officer (whom I have just saved from “breaking up”), “I am the
conductor; but if anything went wrong they’d blame me, not him; am sent
on to this train,—a special job.”
“What were you doing out there so long?”
“Digging the points out of the snow, to push these cars on to another
track, and get round ahead of the train that’s broke down.”
“And have you done it?”
“Guess so.”
It is three o’clock as he steps once more upon the platform. At 3.5 the
train stops suddenly. I look out into the black and white night. It
still snows heavily. At 3.10 the conductor returns.
“When do you think we will get to Baltimore?”
“At about ten.”
“What is the difficulty?”
“Trains in front of us, trains behind us, too. You would be surprised
at the depth of the snow. A gang of men clearing the track ahead.”
At 3.10 he goes out again into the wild night; this time the snow on
the platform glows red under the light of his lamp, which exhibits the
danger signal. A distant whistle is heard. The conductor is pushing
the snow off the platform with his feet. He opens the door to tell
me it is drifting in places to “any height.” At 3.15 he says we have
taken _three_ hours to go _twenty_ miles. Looking back on the track
the rails show a black, deep line in the snow. Not a house or a sign
of life anywhere around us. “We are a heavy train, eight cars,” says
the conductor. The negro stares at us through his wide, great eyes.
“At Rahway we hope to get another engine,” says the guard. At 3.25 we
are really moving along steadily. “About twelve miles an hour,” says
the conductor. The negro smiles contentedly. “We have not met a single
train since we left Jersey City,” says the conductor; “must be trains
behind us,—not far away, either.” A signal station with green and
red lights slips by us. The swinging bell of an approaching train is
heard. The conductor stands on the platform and waves his lamp. Our
train stops. There looms suddenly out of the darkness behind us a vast
globe, white and glowing, like a sun. It comes on, growing larger,
and accompanying it is the bang, bang, bang of the engine’s bell, a
familiar, but uncanny, sound in America. A number of minor lights dance
about on either side of the approaching monster. It does not stop until
its great single blazing Cyclopean eye looks straight into our car.
Then a voice says, “Don’t you want some assistance?” The monster is a
good Samaritan. “A freight-train,” says the conductor, leaping down
upon the line. “Yes, push us along.” I follow him into the snow, up
to my knees, and the flakes are falling in blinding clouds. A man is
altering our signal light. “Are you going to give us another engine?”
I ask. “More than I can say,” he replies. “This buffer’s no good;
can’t push against that,” says the guard of the other train. Then our
conductor goes off with him into the rear. It is 3.40. I turn once
more to “John Bull and His Island.” The negro is asleep. We move on
again, and gradually leave the locomotive Cyclops behind, its great,
sun-like eye getting smaller. A few minutes more, and it follows us. We
pull up at a switch-station. There is some difficulty with the posts.
I go out and lend a hand at getting them clear of snow. Return very
cold and wet. Happily the car is kept at a standing heat of 80° to
90°. “This freight-train started an hour and a half behind us,” says
the conductor. “What about the train ahead?”—“Just got clear of it
at last,—switched us on to another line. Hope we’ll get on now.” At
3.50 we are really going ahead, quite at a brisk pace. Suddenly another
light behind us; suddenly that ominous bell. It reminds me of the
storm-bell off Whitby, that Irving and I sat listening to, one autumn
night, a year or two ago. The conductor has passed through the cars. Is
this new train going to run us down? It comes along swinging its bell.
Just as the possibility of a collision seems ominous the new-comer
veers to the left and passes us. We are evidently on a single line of
rails, with switch-stations at intervals for trains to pass and repass.
Our unhappy train stops once more. Another comes pounding along, with
its one blazing light and its tolling bell. Passes us defiantly, as
the other has done. The new-comer is, however, only an engine this
time. “Assistance, no doubt,” I say to myself. I open the door. The
snow beats in with a rush of wind. The glass is covered with ice. All
else is quiet,—everybody asleep in the train. The negro is dreaming;
he pulls ugly faces. I rub the ice off the window. The conductor is out
in the snow with several lamps, searching for points. He is kicking at
the rails with his boots. A man joins him, with a shovel. They work
away. At four o’clock our train groans and screams; it moves very
quietly. The conductor plods back through the snow. We stop. At 4.5
the conductor and several others are digging on the line. Clearing
points, no doubt. There are switch-lights right and left of them. Now
the conductor climbs once more upon the platform, leaving a red lamp
away on the track behind him. Another train is heard bellowing; another
bell following; another great lamp gleams along the track, smaller red
lights showing upon its white beam, over which the snow falls. This
other locomotive comes right into us, its great blinding eye blazing
like a furnace. The negro wakes up with a cry. “Ah, you fool!” exclaims
the conductor, “what’s the matter?”—“Got help now,” he says to me,
“at last; this will push, and there is another one in front.” The
rear engine pants and pushes, her cow-catcher literally covered with
a snow-bank. There is a great fuss about coupling our car upon this
panting assistant. “Is it only an engine, or has it cars to draw?”—“It
had a train of cars; we have left them on a siding. We shall be all
right now.”
“What’s going on?” is suddenly asked in words and tones not unlike a
voice in “The Bells,”—“what’s going on?”—“We are, I hope, soon,” I
reply to my friend, who has pushed aside his Astrachan cloak and the
car curtains, and is looking curiously at us. The negro attendant wakes
up and goes towards him. “What is it?”—“Oh, nothing, sah!” says the
colored gentleman. “Only getting another engine,” says the conductor.
“What for?” asks Irving (he has really been to sleep). “To check our
speed,” I say; “we have been going too fast.”—“Oh, you astonish me!”
says Irving. “Good-night, then!” The clock marks 4.30. “Good-night,
indeed!” I reply. “So say we all of us,” murmurs Loveday, as I pass his
bunk in search of my own; “what a time we are having!”