FACING THE LION
So the afternoon passed happily; with reading, with talking, with little
confidences, interrupted, now and then, by the busy instrument on the
table, or by some trainman stalking in to get his orders, and going out
with a knowing smile upon his lips. All too soon, as it seemed to Allan,
the night man came up the steps; for the first time in his experience,
Allan found the sight of him unwelcome. Ten minutes later, the train was
bearing him and Bess Heywood homewards. That half-hour journey never
seemed so short.
Mr. Heywood was awaiting them on the grimy Wadsworth platform.
"Thank you, Allan," he said, "for taking care of the runaway. I thought
she was old enough to travel alone, but it seems I was mistaken. I'll
have to send a nurse along hereafter."
"Good-bye, Allan," said the Vision, holding out her hand, and Allan was
quite shocked, when he took it, by its smallness and softness.
[Illustration: "THE AFTERNOON PASSED HAPPILY."]
"Good-bye," he answered, but his tongue dared not pronounce her name.
He watched them until they disappeared in the darkness, then turned away
across the yards, meditating anxiously whether a Being with a hand so
small and soft, so evidently fragile, could long withstand the buffets of
a world so rude and harsh as this one.
* * * * *
"Well, young lady," said Mr. Heywood, at the dinner-table that evening,
"I hope you were sufficiently punished for your thoughtlessness in
wandering away from your train."
"It wasn't such terrible punishment, papa," answered Bess. "I had a very
pleasant afternoon. I think Allan is just fine."
"So do I," agreed her father promptly. "He's a nice boy."
"And he knows such a lot," added Bess. "I felt a perfect booby."
"Quite a salutary feeling for a young lady," nodded her father.
"Especially for one who has always had an excellent opinion of herself."
"Oh, papa!" protested Bess. "I'm not conceited!"
"No, not that precisely," agreed her father; "but most girls, when they
get to be about eighteen, and have all the boys making sheep's-eyes at
them, begin to think that this world was made especially for them, and
that nobody else has any right in it, except perhaps to hustle around
and provide them with ribbons and chiffon ruffles. It's good for them to
get a hint, now and then, that the world is really something more than a
pedestal for them to stand on."
Bess sighed, a little dismally.
"I never understood before," she said, "how awfully I've been wasting my
time."
"If you never waste any more, my dear, you'll have nothing to regret.
Most women don't wake up to the fact that they're wasting their time
until they're middle-aged, and by that time they've fallen into such a
habit of doing so that they can't change."
"I believe," added Bess, thoughtfully, "that I'll ask Allan to the party
I'm going to give next week."
"Do, by all means," said her father, heartily. "It will do you good, and
it won't hurt him."
So it came to pass, a few days later, that the postman mounted the steps
to the little Welsh cottage and left there a tiny envelope addressed to
"Mr. Allan West." Mary received it, and turned it over and over.
"It's from a girl," was her comment. "Bad cess to her. But I knowed
th' girls couldn't let sich a foine-lookin' lad as that alone. They'll
be makin' eyes at him, an' pertendin' t' edge away, an' all th' toime
invitin' him on--don't I know 'em!" And Mary grew quite warm with
indignation, entirely forgetting that she herself had been a girl once
upon a time, and an adept in all the arts of that pretty game of advance
and retreat which she now denounced so vigorously.
She laid the letter on Allan's plate, and noted the little shock of
surprise with which he found it there when he sat down to supper that
evening.
"Hello; what's this?" he asked, picking it up.
"It's a letter come fer ye this mornin'," answered Mary, and she and Jack
and Mamie all waited for him to open it, which he did with a hand not
wholly steady.
"'Miss Elizabeth Heywood,'" he read, "'requests the pleasure of Mr. Allan
West's company, Thursday evening, April 28th. Seven o'clock.'"
"Well, of all th' forrerd minxes!" burst out Mary. "Why, when I was a
girl, I'd a' no more thought o' writin' a young man t' come an' see me--"
Jack interrupted her with a roar of laughter.
"Why, Mary," he cried, "don't ye see! It's a party she's askin' him
to--th' sup'rintindint's daughter!"
"A party! Th' sup'rintindint's daughter!" and Mary paused between
jealousy for her boy and pride that he should have received such an
invitation.
"An' of course he'll go," added Jack, with decision. "It's a shame t'
kape a foine felly like Allan shut up here with us old fogies."
"Well, I'll say this," said Mary, pouring out the coffee, "if he _does_
go, they won't be no finer lookin' young felly there."
And I am inclined to think that Betty Heywood thought so, too, when she
came forward to meet him that Thursday evening.
"How glad I am to see you," she said, with a bright smile of welcome.
As for Allan, he was for the moment tongue-tied. If she had been a vision
in her gray travelling-suit, what was she now, clad, as it seemed to him,
in a sparkling cloud of purest white? She noticed his confusion, and no
doubt interpreted it aright--as what girl would not?--for she went on,
without appearing to notice it:
"And I want my mother to know you. Here she is, over here," and she led
the way to a beautiful woman of middle age, who sat in a great chair at
one end of the room, the centre of a little court. "Mother, this is Allan
West."
Mrs. Heywood held out to him a hand even smaller and softer than her
daughter's.
"I am glad to know you, my boy," she said. "Mr. Heywood has spoken so
much of you that I feel as though I had known you a long time. Won't you
sit down here by me awhile?"
Betty gave a little nod of satisfaction, and hurried away to meet some
other guests, whirling away with her the circle which had been about her
mother's chair. Allan sat down, thinking that he had never heard a voice
as sweet as Mrs. Heywood's.
"We invalids, you know," she went on, with a little smile, "must be
humoured. We can't go to people, so people must come to us. It's like
Mahomet and the mountain."
"I wasn't thinking of that," answered Allan, with a shy glance of
admiration, "but of the fisherman and the Princess."
"So you know your Arabian Nights!" said Mrs. Heywood, colouring faintly
with pleasure at the compliment. "That is right--every boy ought to know
them. But you make me feel a sort of impostor. I have used that reference
to Mahomet and the mountain all my life, but I don't know that I ever
really heard the story. Do you know it?"
"Bacon tells about it in one of his essays," Allan answered. "It seems
that Mahomet announced one day that he would call a hill to him, and
offer up prayers from the top of it. A great crowd assembled and Mahomet
called the hill again and again, but it didn't move, and finally, without
seeming worried or abashed, he announced that, since the mountain
wouldn't come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain, and marched
away to it as proudly as though the mountain had obeyed him."
"That is the first time I ever heard the whole story," said Mrs. Heywood,
laughing, and she shot him a little observing glance, for he seemed an
unusual boy. Then she led him on to tell her something of himself, and
almost before he knew it, he was telling her much more than he had ever
thought to tell any one. There was a subtle sympathy about her--in her
smile, in her quiet eyes--which there was no resisting.
She sent him away, at last, to join the younger guests, but he did not
feel at ease with them, as he had with the older woman. They were all
polite enough, but youth is selfish, and Allan soon found that he and
they had few interests in common; there was nothing to talk about;
they had not the same friends, nor the same habits of thought; there
were no mutual recollections to laugh over, nor plans to make for next
day or next week. Of his hostess he saw very little, for her other
guests claimed her attention at every turn--Betty Heywood was evidently
immensely popular.
So Allan was glad, on the whole, when the time came to take his leave,
and as he walked homeward under the bright stars, he was forced to admit
that his first evening in society had been, in a way, a failure. He
resolved that he did not care for it and would not go again. Indeed,
he had no chance, for Bess Heywood's friends voted him a "stick," and
soon forgot all about him. Nor did that young lady herself preserve a
very vivid recollection of him, for her days were filled with other
duties and pleasures. Her mother's invalidism threw upon her much of the
responsibility of household management, and she was just at the age when
social claims are heaviest and most difficult to evade. Not that she
sought to evade them, for she enjoyed social relaxation, but in the whirl
of party and ball, of calling and receiving calls, the memory of that
afternoon in the operator's shanty at the Junction grew faint and far
away.
And Allan, in the long evenings, buried himself in his books and banished
resolutely whatever dreams may have arisen in his heart, with such
philosophy as he possessed.
He soon had other things to think about. One of the dispatchers, in
a moment of carelessness, had issued contradictory orders which had
resulted in a wreck. In consequence he was compelled to seek a position
somewhere else, and everybody below him in the office moved up a notch.
The extra dispatcher was given a regular trick, and his place in
consequence became vacant.
A day or two later, Allan received a message from the trainmaster
ordering him to report at headquarters, and when he did so, he found that
he was to be initiated into the mysteries of the dispatchers' office.
"That is, if you want the job," added Mr. Schofield.
Allan pondered a moment. The responsibilities of such a position
frightened him. As an operator, he had only to carry out the orders sent
him; but as a dispatcher it would be his duty to issue those orders.
The difference was the same as that between the general of an army and
the private in the ranks. The private has only to obey orders, without
bothering as to their wisdom or folly; if a defeat follows, it is the
general who must answer for it. So each dispatcher has under him, for
eight hours every day, one hundred miles of track, and a regiment of
operators and trainmen, who must obey his orders without question. That
stretch of track is the battlefield, and the victory to be gained is to
move over it, without accident, and on time, such passenger and freight
trains as the business of the road demands. This is the problem which
confronts the dispatcher every time he sits down before his desk.
All this flashed through Allan's mind in that moment of reflection. And
yet he did not really hesitate. He knew that the only road of advancement
open to him lay through the dispatchers' office. There was no way around.
If he faltered now, he must remain an operator always.
"Of course I want the job, sir," he said. "The only question is whether
I'm good enough."
"Well, there's only one way to find out," said Mr. Schofield, grimly.
"The principal thing to remember is that never, under any circumstances,
must you lose your head. Keep cool, and you've got the battle half won.
But if you ever let the work get on your nerves, it's all over. You
don't remember Dan Maroney? He was before your time. Well, Maroney was
one of the best operators we had on the road, a bright fellow, and I
finally called him in to take the extra dispatcher's trick. He seemed
to pick up the work all right, and I hadn't any doubt he would make a
good dispatcher. One night, the regular dispatcher reported sick, and so
I sent for Dan. He took off his coat and sat down at the desk, and the
dispatcher who was going off duty explained to him how the trains lay
and what orders had been issued. Dan seemed to catch on all right, so
the other dispatcher put on his coat and went home. About twenty minutes
later, I happened into the office, and there was Dan, lying back in his
chair, white as a sheet and trembling like a leaf.
"'Why, what's the matter, Dan?' I asked. 'Are you sick?'
"'No, I ain't sick, Mr. Schofield,' he said, and grinned the ghastliest
grin I ever saw on a man's face. 'But I ain't fit for this job. I've lost
my nerve.'
"And, in fact, he was nearly scared to death. Well, we tried to bolster
him up and help him along, but it was no use. He'd lost his nerve, as
he said, and he never got it back again. He's agent and operator now at
Bluefield, and that's as far as he'll ever get. So whatever you do, don't
lost your nerve."
"I'll try not to," said Allan.
"I've often thought," added Mr. Schofield, "that a dispatcher was a good
deal like a lion-tamer. You know, the tamer enters the cage with perfect
safety so long as he keeps his beasts under control. But the moment he
loses his nerve, they seem to know it, some way, and perhaps he gets out
of the cage alive and perhaps he doesn't. If he does, he never dares go
back. He's lost his grip on the beasts and they no longer fear him. Well,
the railroad is like that. Lose your grip on it, and it's all over; the
only thing to do is to get out as quick as you can."
"I'm going to do my best," said Allan. "I'll look it right in the eye."
"Good. That's the spirit! You will report here for duty to-morrow morning
at seven o'clock. I'll send Jones out to Byers in your place."
And Allan left the office, resolved that whatever happened, he would keep
his nerve.