nearly fainted as his ankle swung against the rod. A foot above the base
was a footrest for a man to stand on and reach up for the lamp, and
Toddles drew himself up and got his foot on it--and then at his full
height the tips of his fingers only just touched the bottom of the lamp.
Toddles cried aloud, and the tears streamed down his face now. Oh, if he
weren't hurt--if he could only shin up another foot--but--but it was all
he could do to hang there where he was.
_What was that!_ He turned his head. Up the track, sweeping in a great
circle as it swung the curve, a headlight's glare cut through the
night--and Toddles "shinned" the foot. He tugged and tore at the lamp,
tugged and tore at it, loosened it, lifted it from its socket, sprawled
and wriggled with it to the ground--and turned the red side of the lamp
against second Number Two.
The quick, short blasts of a whistle answered, then the crunch and grind
and scream of biting brake-shoes--and the big mountain racer, the 1012,
pulling the second section of the Limited that night, stopped with its
pilot nosing a diminutive figure in a torn and silver-buttoned uniform,
whose hair was clotted red, and whose face was covered with blood and
dirt.
Masters, the engineer, and Pete Leroy, his fireman, swung from the
gangways; Kelly, the conductor, came running up from the forward coach.
Kelly shoved his lamp into Toddles' face--and whistled low under his
breath.
"Toddles!" he gasped; and then, quick as a steel trap: "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," said Toddles weakly. "There's--there's something wrong.
Get into the clear--on the siding."
"Something wrong," repeated Kelly, "and you don't----"
But Masters cut the conductor short with a grab at the other's arm that
was like the shutting of a vise--and then bolted for his engine like a
gopher for its hole. From down the track came the heavy, grumbling roar
of a freight. Everybody flew then, and there was quick work done in the
next half minute--and none too quickly done--the Limited was no more
than on the siding when the fast freight rolled her long string of
flats, boxes and gondolas thundering by.
And while she passed, Toddles, on the platform, stammered out his story
to Kelly.
Kelly didn't say anything--then. With the express messenger and a
brakeman carrying Toddles, Kelly kicked in the station door, and set his
lamp down on the operator's table.
"Hold me up," whispered Toddles--and, while they held him, he made the
dispatcher's call.
Big Cloud answered him on the instant. Haltingly, Toddles reported the
second section "in" and the freight "out"--only he did it very slowly,
and he couldn't think very much more, for things were going black. He
got an order for the Limited to run to Blind River and told Kelly, and
got the "complete"--and then Big Cloud asked who was on the wire, and
Toddles answered that in a mechanical sort of a way without quite
knowing what he was doing--and went limp in Kelly's arms.
And as Toddles answered, back in Big Cloud, Regan, the sweat still
standing out in great beads on his forehead, fierce now in the revulsion
of relief, glared over Donkin's left shoulder, as Donkin's left hand
scribbled on a pad what was coming over the wire.
Regan glared fiercely--then he spluttered:
"Who's Christopher Hyslop Hoogan--h'm?"
Donkin's lips had a queer smile on them.
"Toddles," he said.
Regan sat down heavily in his chair.
"_What?_" demanded the super.
"Toddles," said Donkin. "I've been trying to drum a little railroading
into him--on the key."
Regan wiped his face. He looked helplessly from Donkin to the super, and
then back again at Donkin.
"But--but what's he doing at Cassil's Siding? How'd he get there--h'm?
H'm? How'd he get there?"
"I don't know," said Donkin, his fingers rattling the Cassil's Siding
call again. "He doesn't answer any more. We'll have to wait for the
story till they make Blind River, I guess."
And so they waited. And presently at Blind River, Kelly, dictating to
the operator--not Beale, Beale's day man--told the story. It lost
nothing in the telling--Kelly wasn't that kind of man--he told them what
Toddles had done, and he left nothing out; and he added that they had
Toddles on a mattress in the baggage car, with a doctor they had
discovered amongst the passengers looking after him.
At the end, Carleton tamped down the dottle in the bowl of his pipe
thoughtfully with his forefinger--and glanced at Donkin.
"Got along far enough to take a station key somewhere?" he inquired
casually. "He's made a pretty good job of it as the night operator at
Cassil's."
Donkin was smiling.
"Not yet," he said.
"No?" Carleton's eyebrows went up. "Well, let him come in here with you,
then, till he has; and when you say he's ready, we'll see what we can
do. I guess it's coming to him; and I guess"--he shifted his glance to
the master mechanic--"I guess we'll go down and meet Number Two when she
comes in, Tommy."
Regan grinned.
"With our hats in our hands," said the big-hearted master mechanic.
Donkin shook his head.
"Don't you do it," he said. "I don't want him to get a swelled head."
Carleton stared; and Regan's hand, reaching into his back pocket for his
chewing, stopped midway.
Donkin was still smiling.
"I'm going to make a railroad man out of Toddles," he said.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] One of a number of stories from book bearing same title, _The Night
Operator_. Copyright, 1919, by George H. Doran Company. Reprinted by
special permission of publisher and author.
[Illustration]
XI.--Christmas Eve in a Lumber Camp[11]
_By Ralph Connor_
IT was due to a mysterious dispensation of Providence and a good deal to
Leslie Graeme that I found myself in the heart of the Selkirks for my
Christmas eve as the year 1882 was dying. It had been my plan to spend
my Christmas far away in Toronto, with such bohemian and boon companions
as could be found in that cosmopolitan and kindly city. But Leslie
Graeme changed all that, for, discovering me in the village of Black
Rock, with my traps all packed, waiting for the stage to start for the
Landing, thirty miles away, he bore down upon me with resistless force,
and I found myself recovering from my surprise only after we had gone in
his lumber sleigh some six miles on our way to his camp up in the
mountains. I was surprised and much delighted, though I would not allow
him to think so, to find that his old-time power over me was still
there. He could always in the old varsity days--dear, wild days--make
me do what he liked. He was so handsome and so reckless, brilliant in
his class work, and the prince of half backs on the Rugby field, and
with such power of fascination as would "extract the heart out of a
wheelbarrow," as Barney Lundy used to say. And thus it was that I found
myself just three weeks later--I was to have spent two or three days--on
the afternoon of December 24, standing in Graeme's Lumber Camp No. 2,
wondering at myself. But I did not regret my changed plans, for in those
three weeks I had raided a cinnamon bear's den and had wakened up a
grizzly---- But I shall let the grizzly finish the tale; he probably
sees more humor in it than I.
The camp stood in a little clearing, and consisted of a group of three
long, low shanties with smaller shacks near them, all built of heavy,
unhewn logs, with door and window in each. The grub camp, with cook-shed
attached, stood in the middle of the clearing; at a little distance was
the sleeping camp with the office built against it, and about a hundred
yards away on the other side of the clearing stood the stables, and near
them the smiddy. The mountains rose grandly on every side, throwing up
their great peaks into the sky. The clearing in which the camp stood was
hewn out of a dense pine forest that filled the valley and climbed
halfway up the mountain sides and then frayed out in scattered and
stunted trees.
It was one of those wonderful Canadian winter days, bright, and with a
touch of sharpness in the air that did not chill, but warmed the blood
like drafts of wine. The men were up in the woods, and the shrill scream
of the bluejay flashing across the open, the impudent chatter of the red
squirrel from the top of the grub camp, and the pert chirp of the
whisky-jack, hopping about on the rubbish-heap, with the long, lone cry
of the wolf far down the valley, only made the silence felt the more.
As I stood drinking in with all my soul the glorious beauty and the
silence of mountain and forest, with the Christmas feeling stealing into
me, Graeme came out from his office, and catching sight of me, called
out, "Glorious Christmas weather, old chap!" And then, coming nearer,
"Must you go to-morrow?"
"I fear so," I replied, knowing well that the Christmas feeling was on
him, too.
"I wish I were going with you," he said quietly.
I turned eagerly to persuade him, but at the look of suffering in his
face the words died at my lips, for we both were thinking of the awful
night of horror when all his bright, brilliant life crashed down about
him in black ruin and shame. I could only throw my arm over his shoulder
and stand silent beside him. A sudden jingle of bells roused him, and,
giving himself a little shake, he exclaimed, "There are the boys coming
home."
Soon the camp was filled with men talking, laughing, chaffing like
light-hearted boys.
"They are a little wild to-night," said Graeme, "and to-morrow they'll
paint Black Rock red."
Before many minutes had gone the last teamster was "washed up," and all
were standing about waiting impatiently for the cook's signal--the
supper to-night was to be "something of a feed"--when the sound of bells
drew their attention to a light sleigh drawn by a buckskin broncho
coming down the hillside at a great pace.
"The preacher, I'll bet, by his driving," said one of the men.
"Bedad, and it's him has the foine nose for turkey!" said Blaney, a
good-natured, jovial Irishman.
"Yes, or for pay-day, more like," said Keefe, a black-browed, villainous
fellow countryman of Blaney's and, strange to say, his great friend.
Big Sandy McNaughton, a Canadian Highlander from Glengarry, rose up in
wrath.
"Bill Keefe," said he with deliberate emphasis, "you'll just keep your
dirty tongue off the minister; and as for your pay, it's little he sees
of it, or any one else except Mike Slavin, when you's too dry to wait
for some one to treat you, or perhaps Father Ryan, when the fear of
hell-fire is on you."
The men stood amazed at Sandy's sudden anger and length of speech.
"_Bon!_ Dat's good for you, my bully boy," said Baptiste, a wiry little
French-Canadian, Sandy's sworn ally and devoted admirer ever since the
day when the big Scotchman, under great provocation, had knocked him
clean off the dump into the river and then jumped in for him.
It was not till afterward I learned the cause of Sandy's sudden wrath
which urged him to such unwonted length of speech. It was not simply
that the Presbyterian blood carried with it reverence for the minister,
but that he had a vivid remembrance of how, only a month ago, the
minister had got him out of Mike Slavin's saloon and out of the clutches
of Keefe and Slavin and their gang of bloodsuckers.
Keefe started up with a curse. Baptiste sprang to Sandy's side, slapped
him on the back, and called out:
"You keel him, I'll hit [eat] him up, me."
It looked as if there might be a fight, when a harsh voice said in a
low, savage tone:
"Stop your row, you fools; settle it, if you want to, somewhere else."
I turned, and was amazed to see old man Nelson, who was very seldom
moved to speech.
There was a look of scorn on his hard iron-gray face, and of such
settled fierceness as made me quite believe the tales I had heard of his
deadly fights in the mines at the coast. Before any reply could be made
the minister drove up and called out in a cheery voice:
"Merry Christmas, boys! Hello, Sandy! _Comment ca va_, Baptiste? How do
you do, Mr. Graeme?"
"First rate. Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Connor, sometime medical
student, now artist, hunter, and tramp at large, but not a bad sort."
"A man to be envied," said the minister, smiling. "I am glad to know any
friend of Mr. Graeme's."
I liked Mr. Craig from the first. He had good eyes that looked straight
out at you, a clean-cut, strong face well set on his shoulders, and
altogether an upstanding, manly bearing. He insisted on going with Sandy
to the stables to see Dandy, his broncho, put up.
"Decent fellow," said Graeme; "but though he is good enough to his
broncho, it is Sandy that's in his mind now."
"Does he come out often? I mean, are you part of his parish, so to
speak?"
"I have no doubt he thinks so; and I'm blowed if he doesn't make the
Presbyterians of us think so too." And he added after a pause: "A dandy
lot of parishioners we are for any man. There's Sandy, now, he would
knock Keefe's head off as a kind of religious exercise; but to-morrow
Keefe will be sober and Sandy will be drunk as a lord, and the drunker
he is the better Presbyterian he'll be, to the preacher's disgust." Then
after another pause he added bitterly: "But it is not for me to throw
rocks at Sandy. I am not the same kind of fool, but I am a fool of
several other sorts."
Then the cook came out and beat a tattoo on the bottom of a dishpan.
Baptiste answered with a yell. But though keenly hungry, no man would
demean himself to do other than walk with apparent reluctance to his
place at the table. At the further end of the camp was a big fireplace,
and from the door of the fireplace extended the long board tables,
covered with platters of turkey not too scientifically carved, dishes of
potatoes, bowls of apple sauce, plates of butter, pies, and smaller
dishes distributed at regular intervals. Two lanterns hanging from the
roof and a row of candles stuck into the wall on either side by means of
slit sticks cast a dim, weird light over the scene.
There was a moment's silence, and at a nod from Graeme Mr. Craig rose
and said:
"I don't know how you feel about it, men, but to me this looks good
enough to be thankful for."
"Fire ahead, sir," called out a voice quite respectfully, and the
minister bent his head and said:
"For Christ the Lord who came to save us, for all the love and goodness
we have known, and for these Thy gifts to us this Christmas night, our
Father, make us thankful. Amen."
"_Bon!_ Dat's fuss rate," said Baptiste. "Seems lak dat's make me hit
[eat] more better for sure." And then no word was spoken for a quarter
of an hour. The occasion was far too solemn and moments too precious for
anything so empty as words. But when the white piles of bread and the
brown piles of turkey had for a second time vanished, and after the last
pie had disappeared, there came a pause and a hush of expectancy,
whereupon the cook and cookee, each bearing aloft a huge, blazing
pudding, came forth.
"Hooray!" yelled Blaney; "up wid yez!" and grabbing the cook by the
shoulders from behind, he faced him about.
Mr. Craig was the first to respond, and seizing the cookee in the same
way, called out: "Squad, fall in! quick march!" In a moment every man
was in the procession.
"Strike up, Batchees, ye little angel!" shouted Blaney, the appellation
a concession to the minister's presence; and away went Baptiste in a
rollicking French song with the English chorus--
Then blow, ye winds, in the morning,
Blow, ye winds, ay oh!
Blow, ye winds, in the morning,
Blow, blow, blow.
And at each "blow" every boot came down with a thump on the plank floor
that shook the solid roof. After the second round Mr. Craig jumped upon
the bench and called out:
"Three cheers for Billy the cook!"
In the silence following the cheers Baptiste was heard to say:
"_Bon!_ Dat's mak me feel lak hit dat puddin' all hup meself, me."
"Hear till the little baste!" said Blaney in disgust.
"Batchees," remonstrated Sandy gravely, "ye've more stomach than
manners."
"Fu sure! but de more stomach, dat's more better for dis puddin',"
replied the little Frenchman cheerfully.
After a time the tables were cleared and pushed back to the wall and
pipes were produced. In all attitudes suggestive of comfort the men
disposed themselves in a wide circle about the fire, which now roared
and crackled up the great wooden chimney hanging from the roof. The
lumberman's hour of bliss had arrived. Even old man Nelson looked a
shade less melancholy than usual as he sat alone, well away from the
fire, smoking steadily and silently. When the second pipes were well
a-going one of the men took down a violin from the wall and handed it to
Lachlan Campbell. There were two brothers Campbell just out from Argyll,
typical Highlanders: Lachlan, dark, silent, melancholy, with the face of
a mystic, and Angus, red-haired, quick, impulsive, and devoted to his
brother, a devotion he thought proper to cover under biting, sarcastic
speech.
Lachlan, after much protestation, interposed with gibes from his
brother, took the violin, and in response to the call from all sides
struck up "Lord Macdonald's Reel."
In a moment the floor was filled with dancers, whooping and cracking
their fingers in the wildest manner. Then Baptiste did the "Red River
Jig," a most intricate and difficult series of steps, the men keeping
time to the music with hands and feet.
When the jig was finished Sandy called for "Lochaber No More," but
Campbell said:
"No! no! I cannot play that to-night. Mr. Craig will play."
Craig took the violin, and at the first note I knew he was no ordinary
player. I did not recognize the music, but it was soft and thrilling,
and got in by the heart till every one was thinking his tenderest and
saddest thoughts.
After he had played two or three exquisite bits he gave Campbell his
violin, saying, "Now, 'Lochaber,' Lachlan."
Without a word Lachlan began, not "Lochaber"--he was not ready for that
yet--but "The Flowers o' the Forest," and from that wandered through
"Auld Robin Gray" and "The Land o' the Leal," and so got at last to that
most soul-subduing of Scottish laments, "Lochaber No More." At the first
strain his brother, who had thrown himself on some blankets behind the
fire, turned over on his face feigning sleep. Sandy McNaughton took his
pipe out of his mouth and sat up straight and stiff, staring into
vacancy, and Graeme, beyond the fire, drew a short, sharp breath. We had
often sat, Graeme and I, in our student days, in the drawing-room at
home, listening to his father wailing out "Lochaber" upon the pipes, and
I well knew that the awful minor strains were now eating their way into
his soul.
Over and over again the Highlander played his lament. He had long since
forgotten us, and was seeing visions of the hills and lochs and glens of
his far-away native land, and making us, too, see strange things out of
the dim past. I glanced at old man Nelson, and was startled at the
eager, almost piteous look in his eyes, and I wished Campbell would
stop. Mr. Craig caught my eye, and stepping over to Campbell held out
his hand for the violin. Lingeringly and lovingly the Highlander drew
out the last strain and silently gave the minister his instrument.
Without a moment's pause, and while the spell of "Lochaber" was still
upon us, the minister, with exquisite skill, fell into the refrain of
that simple and beautiful camp-meeting hymn, "The Sweet By-and-By."
After playing the verse through once he sang softly the refrain. After
the first verse the men joined in the chorus; at first timidly, but by
the time the third verse was reached they were shouting with throats
full open, "We shall meet on that beautiful shore." When I looked at
Nelson the eager light had gone out of his eyes, and in its place was a
kind of determined hopelessness, as if in this new music he had no part.
After the voices had ceased Mr. Craig played again the refrain, more and
more softly and slowly; then laying the violin on Campbell's knees, he
drew from his pocket his little Bible and said:
"Men, with Mr. Graeme's permission I want to read you something this
Christmas eve. You will all have heard it before, but you will like it
none the less for that."
His voice was soft, but clear and penetrating, as he read the eternal
story of the angels and the shepherds and the Babe. And as he read, a
slight motion of the hand or a glance of an eye made us see, as he was
seeing, that whole radiant drama. The wonder, the timid joy, the
tenderness, the mystery of it all, were borne in upon us with
overpowering effect. He closed the book, and in the same low, clear
voice went on to tell us how, in his home years ago, he used to stand on
Christmas eve listening in thrilling delight to his mother telling him
the story, and how she used to make him see the shepherds and hear the
sheep bleating near by, and how the sudden burst of glory used to make
his heart jump.
"I used to be a little afraid of the angels, because a boy told me they
were ghosts; but my mother told me better, and I didn't fear them any
more. And the Baby, the dear little Baby--we all love a baby." There was
a quick, dry sob; it was from Nelson. "I used to peek through under to
see the little one in the straw, and wonder what things swaddling
clothes were. Oh, it was so real and so beautiful!" He paused, and I
could hear the men breathing.
"But one Christmas eve," he went on in a lower, sweeter tone, "there was
no one to tell me the story, and I grew to forget it and went away to
college, and learned to think that it was only a child's tale and was
not for men. Then bad days came to me and worse, and I began to lose my
grip of myself, of life, of hope, of goodness, till one black Christmas,
in the slums of a far-away city, when I had given up all and the devil's
arms were about me, I heard the story again. And as I listened, with a
bitter ache in my heart--for I had put it all behind me--I suddenly
found myself peeking under the shepherds' arms with a child's wonder at
the Baby in the straw. Then it came over me like great waves that His
name was Jesus, because it was He that should save men from their sins.
Save! Save! The waves kept beating upon my ears, and before I knew I had
called out, 'Oh! can He save me?' It was in a little mission meeting on
one of the side streets, and they seemed to be used to that sort of
thing there, for no one was surprised; and a young fellow leaned across
the aisle to me and said: 'Why, you just bet He can!' His surprise that
I should doubt, his bright face and confident tone, gave me hope that
perhaps it might be so. I held to that hope with all my soul,
and"--stretching up his arms, and with a quick glow in his face and a
little break in his voice--"He hasn't failed me yet; not once, not
once!"
He stopped quite short, and I felt a good deal like making a fool of
myself, for in those days I had not made up my mind about these things.
Graeme, poor old chap, was gazing at him with a sad yearning in his dark
eyes; big Sandy was sitting very stiff and staring harder than ever into
the fire; Baptiste was trembling with excitement; Blaney was openly
wiping the tears away, but the face that held my eyes was that of old
man Nelson. It was white, fierce, hungry-looking, his sunken eyes
burning, his lips parted as if to cry. The minister went on.
"I didn't mean to tell you this, men; it all came over me with a rush;
but it is true, every word, and not a word will I take back. And,
what's more, I can tell you this: what He did for me He can do for any
man, and it doesn't make any difference what's behind him, and"--leaning
slightly forward, and with a little thrill of pathos vibrating in his
voice--"oh, boys, why don't you give Him a chance at you? Without Him
you'll never be the men you want to be, and you'll never get the better
of that that's keeping some of you now from going back home. You know
you'll never go back till you're the men you want to be." Then, lifting
up his face and throwing back his head, he said, as if to himself,
"Jesus! He shall save His people from their sins," and then, "Let us
pray."
Graeme leaned forward with his face in his hands; Baptiste and Blaney
dropped on their knees; Sandy, the Campbells, and some others stood up.
Old man Nelson held his eye steadily on the minister.