McGUIRE GOES WEST
HAVING saved the White Mail from a watery grave in the washout at
West Silver Creek, and having also been instrumental in preventing
the robbery of the Midnight Express at Casey’s Tank, Tommy McGuire,
the pump boy, was the most celebrated employee in the service of the
Vandalia Line. The head of the average boy would have been turned with
so much attention, but Tommy had inherited the democratic simplicity of
his plain parents, and, with the exception of a scarcely perceptible
throwing out of his chest, there was no apparent change in his mien
when he stepped from the train at St. Jacobs after his eventful visit
to East St. Louis. His mother had come up from the bridge to meet him.
“Ah, Tommy, darlint,” she cried, clasping the boy in her arms, “they do
be afther makin’ a regular little jude uv ye, so they do, so they do.”
Tommy kissed his mother, and put her from him as though she had been a
child. He straightened his hat, that had been displaced, buttoned the
top button on his store coat, and offered his hand to the agent, who
now came forward to congratulate the young hero. It is to the boy’s
credit that he invariably colored a little when complimented upon his
heroism in preventing the Casey robbery. He could not help recalling
the fact that he was himself hiding from the police when he overheard
the desperadoes planning to hold up the train. To be sure, he and his
friend, little Jack, had committed no offence, but they thought they
had.
Tommy had been home but a few days when he was ordered to report to
the President of the road at Indianapolis. The President was favorably
impressed by the boy’s modesty. He sent him to the General Passenger
Agent, who, finding that Tommy could read fairly well, set him reading
the newspapers, clipping out and pasting on a broad piece of cardboard
the daily comments of the press upon the road and its management. Upon
another card he pasted the market and stock reports, and upon still
another the railway news of the day, the name of the paper from which
the cutting came being written at the bottom of each item. All this was
for the convenience of busy officials. Tommy was greatly interested in
his new work, and in a little while became expert. When he opened a
newspaper his eye swept the page, and if there were a cap. “V” or an
“R” he would catch it almost instantly and read what was said of the
Vandalia or of railroads in general. There is no work in the passenger
department of a railroad that does not sharpen the intellect and
quicken the eye. The office of the General Passenger Agent is a school
of itself, and a boy beginning with a very limited education will come
out of such an office in a few years with an edge on him that would let
him pass for at least a high school graduate. Tommy read constantly.
He read the advertisements of the Vandalia and of other roads as well,
and made comparisons. He ventured one day to call the attention of the
Assistant General Passenger Agent to the plain, prosy unattractiveness
of the company’s advertising matter. He showed the ads. of a number of
other lines, and famous soap display ads., and suggested a picture of
the White Mail. The cut was made and proved very attractive, for the
reason that nobody had ever seen a train of white cars in print before.
The editorial page of a New York daily, famous then as now for its
clean type and clean English, attracted the boy’s notice, and he read
it religiously every day. The General Passenger Agent remembered
distinctly that the boy had declared with characteristic frankness at
their first meeting that he “didn’t know nothing about the passenger
business.”
He noticed that the young man’s form of speech had undergone a
wonderful change. This was due to the fact that Tommy McGuire was
remarkably observing. His daily intercourse was with the higher clerks
and officials of the road. These men were his teachers,--these and the
great editor in Nassau Street, whom he had never seen.
When winter and the dull times came, the General Passenger Agent
persuaded Tommy to go to school. He objected to losing so much time,
but, when assured that he could have his old place back in the spring,
with an increase of pay, he consented. He attended a little college for
boys, in St. Louis.
Tommy was as industrious in school as he had been in the office, and
came back to his desk much improved. For three years he attended school
in winter and worked in the office of the General Passenger Agent in
summer. He was no longer the office boy, but the “Advertising Manager”
for the passenger department of the line.
His friend, little Jack, having outgrown the clothes of a messenger
boy, was now braking on a through passenger run, and so the boys
renewed their acquaintance. Jack was also a great reader. His leisure
hours were devoted to the study of the labor problem. He was much
worried over the prospects of the workingman. He was one of those
good, misguided souls who are ever on the alert for a grievance. Peace
appeared to trouble his mind. “But what’s the good of it all?” Tommy
would ask.
“Mutual protection to elevate the general tone of the workingman.”
“But, if everybody works and succeeds, we’ll all be at the front,
Jack, old boy. My notion is that a great deal depends upon individual
effort.”
But Jack would not be comforted. He gave so much time and thought to
his brother brakemen that he neglected his own job. He would forget
his flags, and one night went out on the Midnight Express with no
oil in his lamps. He had been reported by the conductor, but the
trainmaster, knowing the sad history of his family, let him off with
a sharp lecture. But a man in train service must have his mind on his
work, and so it fell out that the pale, thoughtful Jack forgot to close
the switch at Greenville one night, and put a fast freight, that was
following the express, in the ditch.
For that inexcusable carelessness he was discharged, and it was not
until Tommy had almost exhausted his influence at the general office
that he was re-employed as flagman on a work-train.
Mary, Jack’s sister, had written Tommy from the convent at St. Louis,
urging him to help her unfortunate brother, who seemed to be in bad
repute with the officials, who apparently had forgotten that poor Jack
“had risked his life” to save the Midnight Express from train robbers
when a mere boy.
Tommy, remembering the sad face of the girl who had been the one close
friend of his brief childhood, did what he could for her brother, but
he would have done that without the letter.
Out of his savings Tommy had helped his father to build a new house
at Silver Creek, and when he saw the old folks comfortably settled in
it, he was contented, or as nearly so as an ambitious, aspiring youth
looking for promotion can be.
Alas, for the uncertainty of railroading! Eternal vigilance, it may be
said, is the price of a job. A man must so live and work, that when he
leaves one road another will be waiting for him.
The Vandalia elected a new President. A new General Manager was
appointed and a general cleaning out followed.
The Passenger Agent, who had taken so much interest in Tommy, retired
for a time, and Tommy determined to go West and grow up with the
railroads of that region.
He made a long visit at St. Jacobs, and found that his little
sweetheart was dead to the world. She had taken the veil, and so shut
herself away from the world that had ever seemed hard and heartless to
her.
It was with a sense of pride and a shade of sadness that the agent at
St. Jacobs said good-bye to his _protégé_, who boarded the Highland
accommodation with a heart full of hope and a ticket for Denver.