licked. Most losers will odd things along till they sound even. I heard a
lovely excuse down in Red Gap. Hyman Leftowitz, who does business there
as Abercrombie, the Quality Tailor, made a suit for Eddie Pierce that
drives the depot hack, and Eddie was slow pay. So Hyman lost his native
tact one night and dunned Eddie when he was walking down Fourth Street
with his girl. Eddie left his girl in at the Owl Drug Store and went back
and used Hyman hard; and all Hyman did was to yell 'Help!' and 'Murder!'
I was in his shop for a fitting next day and Hyman's face arrested the
attention much more than usual. It showed that Eddie had done something
with him. So I says: 'Why didn't you fight back? What was your fists
for?' And Hyman says: 'I pledge you my word I didn't know it was a
fight.' Oh, excuses--sure! But that ain't what I'm getting at. You've
heard the winners talk, like we all have, how they did it with the good
old right hook to the jaw, or how they landed one straight left and all
was over; but did you ever hear any talk from a loser without excuses,
one who come out plain and said he was licked by a better man?"
We debated this briefly. We agreed that the reticence of losers is due
to something basic in human nature; a determination of the noblest sort
to disregard failure--that is, Ma Pettengill said you couldn't expect
everything of human nature when it had its earrings in, and I agreed in
as few words as would suffice. I had suddenly become aware that the woman
was holding something back. The signs in her discourse are not to be
mistaken. I taxed her with this. She denied it. Then she said that, even
if she was holding back something, it was nothing to rave about. Just an
anecdote that this here talk about fighting characters had reminded her
of. She wouldn't of thought of it even now if Ben Steptoe hadn't told her
last spring why he didn't lick his Cousin Ed that last time. And this
here Ed Steptoe was the only honest male she had ever known. But that
was because something was wrong in his head, he being a born nut. And
it wasn't really worth going back over; but--well--she didn't know.
Possibly. Anyway--
These Steptoe cousins come from a family back in the East that was remote
kin to mine and they looked me up in Red Gap when they come out into the
great boundless West to carve out a name for themselves. About fifteen
years ago they come. Ben was dark and short and hulky, with his head
jammed down between his shoulders. Ed was blond and like a cat, being
quick. Ben had a simple but emphatic personality, seeing what he wanted
and going for it, and that never being more than one thing at a time. Ed
was all over the place with his own aspirations and never anything long
at a time; kind of a romantic temperament, or, like they say in stories,
a creature of moods. He was agent for the Home Queen sewing machine when
he first come out. But that didn't mean sewing machines was his life
work. He'd done a lot of things before that, like lecturing for a
patent-medicine professor and canvassing for crayon portraits with a
gold frame, and giving lessons in hypnotism, and owning one-half or
a two-headed pig that went great at county fairs.
Ben had come along the year before Ed and got a steady job as brakeman
on the railroad, over on the Coeur d'Alene Branch. He told me he was
going to make railroading his life work and had started in at the bottom,
which was smart of him, seeing he'd just come off a farm. They probably
wouldn't of let him start in at the top. Anyway, he was holding down his
job as brakeman when Ed sailed in, taking orders for the Home Queen, and
taking 'em in plenty, too, being not only persuasive in his methods but
a wizard on this here sewing machine. He could make it do everything
but play accompaniments for songs--hemming, tucking, frilling, fancy
embroidering. He knew every last little dingus that went on it; things
I certainly have never learned in all my life, having other matters on my
mind. He'd take a piece of silk ribbon and embroider a woman's initials
on it in no time at all, leaving her dead set to have this household
treasure.
But Ed had tired of sewing machines, like he had of hypnotism and the
double-headed Berkshire; and he never kept at anything a minute after it
quit exciting him. Ben come down to Red Gap to see his cousin and they
had quite a confab about what Ed should next take up for his life work.
Ben said it was railroading for his, and some day he'd be a general
manager, riding round in his private car and giving orders right and
left, though nothing but a humble brakeman now, and finally he talked Ed
into the same exalted ambitions. Ed said he had often wanted to ride in a
private car himself, and if it didn't take too long from the time you
started in he might give railroading a chance to show what it could do
for him. Ben said all right, come over with him and he'd get him started
as brakeman, with a fine chance to work up to the top.
So, after infesting a few more houses with the Home Queen, Ed went
into his new profession. He told me, the last thing, that, even if he
didn't stick till he got to the top, it was, anyway, a fine chance for
adventure, which was really the thing he had come west of Chicago for.
He said night and day he pined for adventure.
He got his adventure right soon after the company's pay roll was adorned
with his name. He'd been twisting up brakes on freight cars for ten days
till the life looked tame to him, even with a private car at the end,
and then all his wildest dreams of adventure was glutted in something
like four minutes and thirty seconds. On this eleventh day after he'd
begun at the bottom he started to let two big freight cars loaded with
concentrates down the spur track, from one of the mines at Burke, having
orders to put 'em where the regular train for Wallace could pick 'em up.
Burke is seven miles up the canon from Wallace and the grade drops two
hundred and thirty-five feet to the mile, being a masterpiece of
engineering. Ed gets his two cars to the main line, all right, whistling
a careless ditty. Then when they should of stopped they did not. They
kept sneaking and creaking along on him. He couldn't get the brake of
the forward car up very tight, and in setting the brake of the rear car,
with a brakeman's stick for a lever, he broke the chain. Then his two
cars really started out looking for adventure.
Ed admits that he had the thrill of his life for seven miles. I guess his
wildest cravings for adventure was appeased for the time. He flattened
out at the rear end of the last car and let the scenery flash by. He said
afterward it looked just one blurred mess to him. His two cars dropped
the sixteen hundred and forty-five feet and made the seven-mile distance
in four and one-half minutes by standard railroad time. Ed was feeling
fairly good, never having rode so fast in his life before, and he was
hoping nothing serious would get in the way before the cars slowed up on
a level somewhere. He didn't have long to hope this. His cars struck a
frog at the upper end of the Wallace yard and left the track. The forward
ends plowed into the ground and the rear ends swung over. Ed was shot
through the air two hundred and thirty-five feet, as afterward measured
by a conscientious employee of the road, and landed in a dump of sawdust
by the ice house.
It seems Ben was working in the Wallace yard that day and was the first
man to look things over. He put a report on the wire promptly and had a
wrecking outfit there to minister to these two injured box cars, and a
gang of Swedes repairing the track in no time at all. Then someone with
presence of mind said they ought to look for Ed, and Ben agreed; so
everybody searched and they found him in this sawdust. He looked
extremely ruined and like this little adventure had effected structural
modifications in him. He certainly had been brought down out of control,
like Squat says, but he was still breathing; so they took him over to the
Wallace Hospital on a chance that he could be put together again, like a
puzzle. A doctor got to work and set a lot of bones and did much plain
and fancy sewing on Ed the adventurer.
So there he was, bedfast for about three months; but, of course, he begun
to enjoy his accident long before that--almost as soon as he come to, in
fact. It seemed to Ed that there had never been so good an accident as
that in the whole history of railroading, and he was the sole hero of it.
He passed his time telling the doctor all about it, and anyone else that
would drop in to listen: just how he felt when the cars started downhill;
how his whole past life flashed before him and just what he was thinking
about when the cars poured him off. He was remembering every second of it
by the time he was able to get on crutches. He never used that old saying
about making a long story short.
First thing he did when he could hobble was to take a man from the
resident engineer's office out to the point where he'd left the rails and
tape his flight, finding it to be two hundred and thirty-five feet. That
hurt his story, because he had been estimating it at five hundred feet;
but he was strictly honest and accepted the new figures like a little
man.
That night Ben come in, who'd been up round Spokane mostly since the
accident, and Ed told him all about it; how his flight was two hundred
and thirty-five feet. And wasn't it the greatest accident that ever
happened to anybody?
Ed noticed that Ben didn't seem to be excited about it the way he had
ought to be. He was sympathetic enough for Ed's bone crashes, but he said
it was all in the day's work for a railroad man; and he told Ed about
some other accidents that was right in a class along with his and mebbe
even a shade better. Ed was peeved at this; so Ben tried to soothe him.
He said, yes, indeed, all hands had been lucky--especially the company.
He said if them two cars hadn't happened to strike soft ground that took
the wheels they'd been smashed to kindling; whereas the damage was
trifling. This sounded pretty cold to Ed. He said this railroad company
didn't seem to set any exaggerated value on human life. Ben said no
railroad company could let mere sentiment interfere with business if it
wanted to pay dividends, and most of them did. He said it was a matter of
dollars and cents like any other business, and Ed had already cost 'em a
lot of good hard cash for doctor's bills. Then he admitted that the
accident had been a good thing for him, in a way, he being there on the
spot and the first to make a report over to the superintendent at Tekoa.
"I bet you made a jim-dandy good report," says Ed, taking heart again
after this sordid dollars-and-cents talk. "It was certainly a fine chance
to write something exciting if a man had any imagination. You probably
won't have another chance like that in all your career."
"My report pleased the Old Man all right," says Ben. "He's kind of had
his eye on me ever since. He said the way I worded that report showed I
wasn't one to lose my head and get hysterical, the way he had known some
green hands to do."
"I'll certainly have to have a look at that report," says Ed. "Probably
you did get a little bit hysterical at that seeing there was lots of
excuse for it."
Ben says no, he can't remember that he was hysterical any, because the
high-class railroad man must always keep his head in emergencies. Ed
says, anyway he knows it must of been a corking good report, and he'll
sure have a look at it when he gets to stepping again.
All the same, it begun to look to Ed like his accident wasn't being made
enough of. It come over him gradually. Of course he'd got to be an old
story round the hospital and people was beginning to duck when he started
talking. Then, after he got on crutches he'd hobble about the fatal spot,
pointing out his route to parties that would stay by him, and getting 'em
to walk over two hundred and thirty-five feet to where he was picked up
lifeless. And pretty soon even this outside trade fell off. And right
after that he begun to meet new trainmen and others that had never heard
a word about the accident and looked at him like they thought he was a
liar when he told the details. He was coming to be a grouchy nuisance
round Wallace. Even the doctor said he'd be glad when Ed got entirely
well again.
Ed couldn't understand it. He must of thought the company should stop all
trains for five minutes every day at the hour of his mix-up, or at the
very least that the president of the road and the board of directors
ought to come down in a special car and have their pictures taken with
him; and a brass tablet should be put up on the ice house, showing where
his lifeless carcass was recovered. And of course they would send him
a solid gold engraved pass, good for life between all stations on all
divisions. But these proper attentions was being strangely withheld. So
far as Ed could see, the road had gone right on doing business as usual.
He couldn't understand it at all. It seemed like he must be dreaming. He
wrote to Ben, who was still up the line, that this here fine report he
had made must of got lost; anyway, it seemed like the company had never
got round to reading it or they wouldn't have took things so placid. By
now he was pinning all his hopes to this report of Ben's if any justice
was going to be done him in this world. He'd tell parties who doubted
his story that he guessed they'd believe him fast enough if they ever
got an eye on Ben's report, which was made on the spot, and was so good
a report, though not hysterical, that it had drawn compliments from the
division superintendent.
It occurs to him one day that he ought to have a copy of this report if
he is ever going to be set right before the world. He suspects crooked
work by this time. He suspects mebbe the company is keeping the thing
quiet on purpose, not wanting the public to know that such wonderful
accidents could happen to its faithful employees. So he talks to Charlie
Holzman, the conductor of Number 18, and wants to know would it be
possible to sneak this report of Ben's out of the files over at Tekoa.
Charlie says that wouldn't be possible, but he's going to lay over at
Tekoa the very next night and he'll be glad to make a copy of the report.
Ed says he hates to keep Charlie setting up half the night writing, or
mebbe all night, because Ben has told him the report was a good one.
Charlie says he'll get help if necessary. Ed says get all the help
necessary and he'll pay the bill, and not to leave out even the longer
descriptive parts, because if it's as well written as Ben says it is he
may have it printed in a little volume for sending round to his friends.
The next day Ed is sunning himself on the station platform when Number 18
steams in. He's told a lot of people that Charlie is bringing this report
and he's aiming to read it aloud, just to show 'em what a man can pass
through and live to tell of it. Charlie swings down and hands him one
folded sheet of yellow paper. Ed says, what's the matter--couldn't he get
to copy the report? Charlie says the report is all there on that sheet,
every word of it. One sheet! And Ed had been expecting at least forty
pages of able narrative, even without hysteria. Even before he looks at
it Ed says there is crooked work somewhere.
Then he read Ben's report. It didn't fill even the one sheet--not more
than half of it. It merely says: "Brakeman Steptoe had trouble holding
two cars of concentrates he was letting down from the Tiger-Poorman
mine at Burke. Cars ran to Wallace and left track. Steptoe thrown some
distance. Right leg and arm broken; left shoulder dislocated; head cut
some. Not serious."
It was unbelievable; so Ed did the simple thing and didn't believe it.
Not for one minute! He says to Charlie Holzman: "Charlie, I know you're
honest; and, furthermore, you are a brother Moose. You've brought me
what's on file in that office; so now I know there's a conspiracy to hush
my accident up. I've thought so a long time--the way people acted round
here. Now I know it. Don't say a word; but I'm going to take it up with
Ben at once. Good old Ben! Won't he be in a frenzy when he finds this
paltry insult has been sneaked into the files in place of his report on
me!" So into the station he goes and wires Ben up the line to come there
at once on account of something serious.
Ben gets in that night. He thought Ed must be dying and had got a
lay-off. He goes over to the hospital and is a mite disappointed to
find Ed ain't even worse, but is almost well and using only one crutch.
Ed first makes sure no one can overhear, then tells Ben about this
conspiracy, showing him the false report that has been smuggled into the
files in place of the real one Ben had sent in. It takes Ben a couple of
minutes to get the idea of what Ed is so worked up over. But he finally
does get it. He then sweeps all ideas of a conspiracy out of Ed's mind
forever. He says his talk is all nonsense; that this here is the very
report he made, every word of it; and, as to that, if he had it to write
over again he could shorten it by at least six words, but he must of
been excited at the time. He says he has already told Ed that the Old
Man complimented him on it because he hadn't lost his head and got
hysterical, showing he had the makings of a good railroad man in him. And
what had Ed expected, anyway? Didn't he know that your superiors want the
simple facts in cases of this kind and no fancy work, wanting chiefly to
know about damage to the rolling stock and how long before the main line
will be open? Ed must be crazy, making him get a lay-off just for this!
Had he looked for some verses of poetry about his accident, or a novel?
Ben wasn't any novelist and wouldn't be one if you give him a chance. He
was just a brakeman, with a bright future before him.
Ben was quite indignant himself by this time thinking of two days' pay
lost, and Ed could hardly believe his own ears. He just set there,
swelling up like a toad in a very feverish way. "But 'some distance,'"
says Ed in low tones of awe. "You say I was thrown 'some distance,' like
it was a casual remark. Is that any way to talk about a man hurled two
hundred and thirty-five feet from start to finish?--which I can prove
by the man that taped it. Why, any one would think them two cheap box
cars was the real heroes of this accident. No one would dream that a
precious human life was at stake. And 'Not serious!' And 'Head cut some!'
Great suffering cats! Was that any way to talk about a fellowman--not to
say a first cousin?"
Ben was pretty mad himself now and swore right out--at least the only
oath he ever swears, which is "By doggie!" He says, by doggie, it ain't
his fault that Ed was so brittle! And, by doggie, he wasn't going to let
family affection interfere none with his career, because it wouldn't be
right by the children he hopes some day to be the father of! Then he got
his temper back and tried patiently to explain once more to Ed that what
a railroad company wants in such cases is facts and figures, and not
poetry--chiefly about the rolling stock. He says Ed can't expect a great
corporation, with heavy freight and passenger traffic, to take any deep
personal interest in the bone troubles of a mere brakeman.
It was about here, I guess, that Ed's feelings must of overcome him.
He saw it was no use bandying words any more; so he started to do foul
murder. He committed several acts of frightfulness on Ben with his
crutch, seeming quite active for a cripple. Ben finally got out of range
and went and had some stitches took in his own scalp. He swore, by
doggie, he was through with that maniac forever! But he wasn't through.
Not by no means!
Ed was now well enough to stand shipping; so he come down to Red Gap and
started to work. He couldn't get round with his machines yet; so he got a
new Home Queen and parked himself in the doorway of a vacant store and
made embroidered hat marks for the multitude at one dollar a throw. Yes,
sir; he congested traffic there on Fourth Street for about two weeks,
taking a strip of satin ribbon and embroidering people's initials on it,
so they could sew it in their hats and know whose hat it was. Hardly a
hat in town that didn't have one, with thrilled crowds looking on while
he done it.
I begged him to take it easy and stay at my house till he was strong
again; but he wouldn't. He said he had to do something just to keep from
thinking. Of course the poor lollop had never been able to think under
any circumstances; but it sounded good. And, of course, he told me his
trouble. I don't believe he held back the least little thing from the
beginning of the accident down to the time he lammed Ben with his crutch.
He now blamed everything on Ben. He said neither the company nor any one
else could take his accident seriously after that lying report Ben put
in. No wonder there hadn't been any real excitement about it. He was
right bitter.
"'Some distance' Ben says I was thrown. I should think it was some
distance! I'll bet it's farther than any other man was ever thrown on
their whole rotten system. And 'Not serious'! Great Jeeminetty! What
would have to happen to a person before he'd call it serious? Oh, I'll
make him take that back if ever I get to be the man I once was! The only
trouble with Ben is, he hasn't anything here and he hasn't anything
here"--Ed put his hand first on his head and next on his heart, to show
me where Ben hadn't got anything--"and that kind of trash may make fine
railroad men, but they hadn't ought to be classed with human beings.
Just wait till I get firmly knitted together again! You'll see! I'll
certainly interfere with that man's career a-plenty. 'Not serious!' He
won't make any such report about himself when I get through fussing with
him. He certainly does need handling--that Ben Steptoe."
And so on for half an hour at a time, while he might be stitching G. W.
G. in purple letters on a strip of yellow satin ribbon. I used to stop on
purpose to hear some more about what he was going to do to Ben when he
got to be the man he once was.
Pretty soon he had identified all the hats in Red Gap; so he moved over
to Colfax with his Home Queen, and then on to other towns. It was spring
again before he seemed to be the man he once was. He wrote me from Tekoa
that if I read in the papers about something sad happening to Ben I
wasn't to be alarmed, because, though it would be serious enough, it
would probably not prove fatal if he had skilled nursing. So I watched
the papers, but couldn't find any crime of interest. And a few days
later Ed come over to Red Gap again. He looked pretty good, except for
an overripe spot round his left eye.
"Well, did you lick Ben?" I says.
"No; Ben licked me," he says.
I'd never heard such a simple and astounding speech from any man on earth
before. I started to find out what his excuse was--whether he wasn't in
good shape yet, or his foot slipped, or Ben took a coupling pin to him,
or something. But he didn't have a single word of excuse. He ought to of
been locked up in a glass case in a museum right there. He said he was in
fine shape and it had been a fair fight, and Ben had nearly knocked his
head off.
I says what is he going to do now; and he says oh, he'll wait a while and
give Cousin Ben another go.
I says: "Mebbe you can't lick Ben."
He says: "Possibly so; but I can keep on trying. I have to protect my
honour, don't I?"
That's how it seemed to the poor fish by this time--his honour! And I
knew he was going to keep on trying, like he had said. If he had made the
usual excuses that men put up when they've had the worst of it I'd of
known he'd been well licked, and once would be a-plenty. But, seeing that
he was probably the only man who had been honest under such conditions
since the world began, I had a feeling he would keep on. He was sure
going to annoy Ben from time to time, even if he didn't panic him much.
He was just as turbulent as ever. Now he went off and joined a circus,
being engaged to lecture in front of the side show about the world's
smallest midget, and Lulu the snake empress, and the sheep-headed twins
from Ecuador. And Ben could devote the whole summer to his career without
worry. I saw him over at Colfax one day.
"Mark my words; that lad was never cut out for a railroad man," says Ben.
"He lets his emotions excite his head too much. Oh, I give him a good
talking to, by doggie! I says to him: 'Why, you poor little hopeless,
slant-headed, weak-minded idiot, you'--you know I always talk to Ed like
he was my own brother--'what did you expect?' I says. 'I'm quite sorry
for your injuries; but that was the first chance I'd ever had to make a
report and I couldn't write one of these continuous stories about you.
You ought to see that.' And what does he do but revile me for this
commonsense talk! Tightminded--that's what he is; self-headed, not to
say mulish, by doggie! And then pestering round me to have a fist
altercation till I had to give in to keep him quiet, though I'm not a
fighting character. I settled him, all right. I don't know where he is
now; but I hope he has three doctors at his bedside, all looking
doubtful. That little cuss always did contrary me."