LITTLE JACK’S PROMOTION
“I DON’T care a tinker’s dime about Denis McGuire,“ said the agent,
angrily, “but something must be done for little Jack. He’s having
malaria. Winter will be coming on and he can’t stand a winter in that
shanty.”
“I can take Jack in my office to carry dispatches,” said the
roadmaster; “but who can I put on the bridge to watch it as that boy
does?”
“There you are,” replied the agent, sarcastically. “Because the boy is
faithful, you would keep him there until he dies and leaves his mother
utterly helpless. But,” he added quickly--for he was a good stayer when
he elected to stay--“since you ask my advice, I’ll tell you: Put Denis
McGuire on the bridge--he’s a cripple for life; crippled in the service
of this company.”
“I’ve told ye,” said the roadmaster, “that Denis McGuire was barred
from workin’ fur the Vandalia phile I’m here.”
The agent wore a look of disgust, as he turned to answer a call.
Presently he came near the roadmaster, drew a chair, and said, as
though he were telling a new, strange story to a little child: “I
knew a section boss once who let a flat car get away on the hill at
Collinsville; the car ran out on the main line, collided with the
President’s private car, wrecked it and killed a trainman. He was
discharged, reinstated after a few months, and is now--”
“That was not my fault,” broke in the roadmaster, “I sint a man to set
the brake.”
“Denis McGuire sent a man to flag, but--”
“And he should have seen the flagman beyent th’ curve before loadin’
th’ push kayre.”
“And the gentleman at Collinsville should have seen that the brake was
in working order before kicking the block from under the wheel with his
own brave foot,” said the agent, nodding his head to clinch the point.
The roadmaster was beaten out. Presently he got to his feet and began
walking the floor. When the local freight came along the agent told
the conductor what had passed between the official and himself.
“Hazelton,” said the agent, “they won’t give you a passenger train
because you’re a good man on freight. Jim Law is no good as a freight
man so they reward him with a soft run; a thorn for virtue and a rose
for vice. Hazelton, the poor should help the poor--speak a word for
little Jack, the Hibernian czar goes down with you to-day.”
And it came to pass that Denis McGuire, with one leg shorter than the
other, was made watchman at Silver Creek, and little Jack went to be
messenger boy in the office of the roadmaster.
Although loath to part company with his little friend, Tommy rejoiced
at Jack’s good luck. What distressed him most was the thought that
little Mary would not come now to fetch his dinner and put fresh
flowers in the old tomato can.
There was no need for him to stay in the shanty nights; in fact, his
mother wanted his protection, so Tommy moved back to the McGuire
cottage in the heart of Lick Skillet.
To his surprise, Mary continued to bring his dinner until the beginning
of the winter term of school, after which Tommy ate a cold lunch or
came home for his dinner. He invariably had the tank filled, his mule
stabled, and was up the road to meet Mary on her way from school. In
winter, when the snow was deep, he took the mule, and the sled that Mr.
Collins had made for him, and brought Mary home. It was wonderful, the
change that had come over this apparently worthless boy within a year.
He could walk into the pay-car, sign his name for forty dollars, and it
was his, and he was a man, all but the whiskers, and he felt sure that
they would be along on time.
When Jack came home for the holidays, with a new suit of store clothes,
presents for his mother, a new, warm cloak for Mary, and firecrackers
for all the little boys in the place, he and Tommy had many a happy
hour together. East St. Louis was a wonderful city, and they were
building a great bridge across the river that ran between the two
towns, as wide as Anderson’s orchard and as deep as a well. And some
day the roadmaster was going to give Tommy a lay-off and he was to
visit Jack, and they would cross the great river on a steamboat with a
whistle as big as the water tank.
“An’ dive off d’ bridge,” broke in Tommy, enthusiastically.