Uncle Ike did not get up very early, on account of a little pain in
one of his hind legs, as he expressed it, a rheumatic pain that he had
almost come to believe, as the pension agent had often suggested, was
caused by his service in the army thirty-five years ago. The pension
agent, who desired to have the honor of securing a pension for the old
man, had asked him to try and remember if he was not exposed to a sudden
draft, some time in the army, which might have caused him to take cold,
and thus sow the seeds of rheumatism in his system, which had lain
dormant all these years and finally appeared in his legs. The old man
had thought it over, and remembered hundreds of occasions when he was
soaked through with icy water, and had slept on the wet ground, and gone
hungry and taken cold, but he realized that he had taken no more colds
in the army than he had at home, and he could not see how he could swear
that a chill he received thirty-five years ago could have anything to
do with his present aches, and though he knew thousands of the old boys
were receiving pensions, that were no worse off than he was, he had told
the pension agent that he need not apply for a pension for his pain in
the knee. He said he felt that he might just as well apply for a pension
on account of inheriting rheumatism from an uncle who fought in the
Mexican war, and he would wait until the government did not insist on a
veteran having such an abnormal memory about sneezing during the war, as
a basis for pension claims, and when it got so a pension would come to
a soldier by simply looking up his record, and examining his physical
condition, he would take a pension. The old man had heard a peculiar
clicking down in the sitting room, all the morning, while he was
dressing, and he wondered what it was. As he limped into the sitting
room, with his dressing-gown on, and began to round up his shaving
utensils, preparatory to his morning shave, he found the red-headed boy
in his night shirt, sitting at a table with an old telegraph instrument
that looked as though it had been picked out of a scrap-pile, and the
boy was ticking away for dear life, his hair standing on end, his brow
corrugated, and his eyes glaring.
[Illustration: What dum foolishness you got on hand now 177]
“What dum foolishness you got on hand now?” asked the old man, as he set
a cup of hot water on the mantel, and began to mix up the lather. “What
you ticking away on that contrivance for, and looking wise?”
“This is a telegraph office,” said the boy, as he stopped operations
long enough to draw his cold bare feet up under him, and pulled his
night shirt down to cover his knees. “I am learning to telegraph, and
am going into training for president of a railroad. Did you see in
the papers the other day that Mr. Earling was elected president of a
railroad, and did you know that he started in as a telegraph operator
and a poor boy, with hair the color of tow? They used to call him
Tow-Head.”
“Yes, I read about that,” said Uncle Ike, as he looked in the glass
to see if the lather was all right on his face, and began to strop his
razor. “I knew that boy when he was telegraphing. But he knew what all
those sounds meant. You just keep ticking away, and don't know one tick
from another.”
“Yes, I do,” said the boy, as he smashed away at the key. “That long
sound, and the short one, and the one about half as long as the long
one--that spells d-a-m, dam.”
“Well, what do you commence your education spelling out cuss words for?”
asked the old man, as he raked the razor down one side of his face,
pulling his mouth around to one side so it looked like the mouth of a
red-horse fish. “Anybody would think you were in training for one of
these railroad superintendents who swear at the men so their hair will
stand, and then swear at them because they don't get their hair cut.
The railroad presidents and general managers nowadays don't swear a blue
streak, and keep the men guessing whether they will get discharged for
talking back. This man Earling never swore a half a string in his life,
and in thirty years of railroading he never spoke a cross word to a
living soul, and his brow was never corrugated as much as yours has
been spelling out that word dam. Got any idea what railroad you will be
president of?” and the old man wiped his razor, stropped it on the palm
of his hand, put it in a case, and went to a washbowl to wash the soap
off his face.
“Well, I thought I would start in on some narrow-gauge railroad, and
work up gradually for a year or two, and finally take charge of one of
those Eastern roads, where I can have a private car, and travel all over
the country for nothing. As quick as I get this telegraph business down
fine I shall apply for a position of train dispatcher, and then jump
right along up. Uncle Ike, you will never have to pay a cent on my
railroad. I will have a caboose fixed up for you, with guns and dogs,
and you can hunt and fish all your life, with a nigger to cook for you,
and a porter to put on your bait, and another nigger chambermaid to make
up your bed, and I will wire them from the general office to sidetrack
you, and pick you up, and all that.”
“Is that so?” said the old man, as he stood rubbing his face with a
crash towel till it shone like a boiled lobster. “You are hurrying your
railroad career mighty fast, and if you are not careful you will replace
Chauncey Depew before you get long pants on. Now, you go get your
clothes on and come to breakfast, and after breakfast I will tell you
something.” The boy dropped the key, after ticking to the imaginary
general office not to disturb him with any messages for half an hour, as
he was going to be busy on an important matter, and he went to his room
and soon appeared at the breakfast table, and after the breakfast was
over, and the old man had lighted his pipe, the boy said:
“Now, Uncle Ike, tell me all you know about railroading in one easy
lesson, for I have to go to a directors' meeting at ten, and then we
are going out to look over the right of way,” and the boy ticked off
a message to have his special car ready at eleven-thirty, stocked for a
trip over the line.
“I see you are getting well along in your railroad career, and like nine
out of ten boys who want to be railroad men, you are beginning at the
private car instead of the gravel train, issuing general orders instead
of working in the ranks,” and the old man smoked up and thought a long
time, and continued: “The successful railroad man begins at the bottom,
and learns the first lesson well. Do you know how long this man Earling
has been getting where he is today? Thirty-five years. More than
the average age of man. The successful railroad man, if he begins
telegraphing, gets so he can send or receive anything, with his eyes
shut, and never makes a mistake. After a long time he gets a measly
country station, where he does all kinds of work, and he is satisfied.
He goes to work to increase the business of that station, to clean up
around the depot, and please all the customers, as though he was going
to live there all his life. He never thinks he is going to be a high
official, but just makes the best of the present. Some day he is awfully
surprised to be given a better station, and he hates to leave, and maybe
sheds a tear as he parts with the friends he has made there. But he goes
to his new place and improves it, and gets in with a new, pushing class
of people, and begins to grow. He maybe works there ten years, and his
work shows so the officials recognize it, and he never makes a mistake
in his telegraphing, and some day they call him into headquarters during
a rush, to help the train dispatcher, and then he has to move into the
city and watch trains on thousands of miles of road, to see that they
don't get together, as train dispatcher. He thinks that position is
good enough, and he hopes they will let him alone in it, but some day
he assists the superintendent, and he is so well posted they are all
surprised. They wonder how that station agent got to knowing all the men
on the road, and how much a train of freight cars weigh, and how many
cents per mile each loaded car earns for the company, and what cars
ought to go to the shops for repairs, and how many new cars will have
to be bought to handle the crops on his division. The 'old man,' as the
president is always called, gets to leaning on this always good-natured,
promoted, station agent, who is so modest he wouldn't offer a suggestion
unless asked his opinion, and when asked gives it so intelligently that
you could set your watch by it, as the boys say. He is always sober,
never sleepy, and whether figuring on the wheat crop of Dakota to a
carload, or wearing rubber boots and dining on sausage and bread for a
couple of days fixing up a washout, he is always calm and smiling, and
every man works as though his own house was afire, till the washout
is repaired and the first train pulls over. When the rich, fat, gouty
directors come around, once a year, to take an account of stock, and see
the property at work, they see the modest man, and by and by he is taken
off his feet by a promotion that almost makes him dizzy. Other railroads
see that he is all wool, and they try to steal him away, but he says he
has got used to his old man, and he knows every spike in the system, and
there are gray hairs beginning to come around his ears, and he guesses
he will not go away and have to make new acquaintances, and he remains
with the road where he learned to tick, as you are ticking, and one day
he is at the head of it. But if you examine into the head of the man
who gets up from station agent to president, you will find that there is
brain there and no cut feed. Another station agent might get the bighead
the first time he was promoted, and they would have to promote him
backward, on that account, but it would be because there was excelsior
in his head, instead of brain, and he would be mad and jealous, and say
mean things about those who got promoted, and stayed promoted. Now, let
me give you a pointer. Don't train for general manager or president of
a road. Train for the thing you are going to get first, whether it is
operator or brakeman, and when you have mastered the details of that
place, learn something about the next above. It is like going up a
ladder; you have got to go up one step at a time, and get your foot on
the step so it will stay, then go up another step. If you attempt to
step from the ground to the top of the ladder, you are going to split
your pants from Genesis to Revelations, and come down on your neck, and
show your nakedness to those who have watched you try to climb too fast,
and they will laugh at you. Now, go on with your condum ticking, but
tick out something besides d--a--m, dam,” and the old man went out to
see if there had been any frost the night before, with an idea that if
there was he would shoot a few teal duck, and cure his rheumatism that
way, instead of putting on liniment.