[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]
Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.
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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1895. FIVE CENTS A
COPY.
VOL. XVII.--NO. 843. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.
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A GOOD SUNDAY MORNING'S WORK.
BY W. J. HENDERSON.
"It's altogether too absurd!" That was what the schoolmaster said.
"It is a wicked assumption of power!" That was what the minister said.
"It's flying in the face of Providence!" That was what old Mrs. Mehonky
said.
"Them two boys is a couple o' fools, an' they'll git drowned!" That was
what old Captain Silas Witherbee, formerly commander of the steam
oyster-dredge _Lotus Lily_, said.
And really, when you come to think of it, that was the most sensible
remark of the lot. But what people said did not seem to trouble "them
two boys."
"We're going to do it," declared Peter Bright.
"That's what," added Randall Frank.
And so they did. What was it? Well, it was this way. Searsbridge was a
small sea-coast town situated at the head of a bay some four miles long.
There was very little commercial traffic in that bay, for Searsbridge
was a tiny place. A schooner occasionally dropped anchor in the bay when
head winds and ugly seas were raging outside; and it was said that two
or three big ships had run into the shelter of the harbor in days gone
by, and there was a legend that a great Russian ironclad had once
stopped there for a supply of fresh water. But, as a rule, only the
fishermen's boats ran in and out between Porgy Point and Mullet Head.
There was no light at the entrance to the harbor, but there were some of
the sharpest and most dangerous rocks on the coast scattered about the
entrance.
"It'd be a famous place for a wreck," said a visitor one day.
"Why," exclaimed Peter Bright, who was showing him about, "there have
been three wrecks there since I was born."
"And is there no life-saving station?"
"Not nearer than Hartwell, and that's three miles away."
"Well, there ought to be a volunteer crew here, then."
"We generally manage to get a crew together when there's a wreck."
"There ought to be a regular crew, well drilled, and prepared for the
worst."
And that was what led Peter Bright and Randall Frank to talk it all
over and decide to get up a crew. But the other fellows all laughed at
them, and said that there would be a crew on hand when there was any
need for it.
"Yes," said Randall, who always spoke briefly and to the point, "and
before that crew gets afloat lives will be lost."
But the arguments of the two young men did not prevail, and they
therefore came to the determination which called forth the protests of
the schoolmaster, the minister, Mrs. Mehonky, and Captain Silas
Witherbee. But these protests had no influence with the two friends.
"We're going to brace up my boat, and in suspicious weather we're going
to cruise in her off the mouth of the bay to lend aid to vessels in
distress," said Peter, with all the dignity he could command.
And Randall proudly and emphatically added, "That's what."
Peter's boat was by no means so despicable a craft as might have been
supposed from the comments of the neighbors. She had been the dinghy of
a large sailing ship, and was stoutly built for work in lumpy water. The
ship had been wrecked on the coast, and the dinghy had been given to
Peter in payment for his services in helping to save her cargo. The
first thing that the boy did was to put a centre-board in the craft, and
to rig her with a stout mast and a mainsail, cat-boat fashion. Then he
announced that in his opinion he had a boat that would stay out when
some more pretentious vessels would have to go home. Of course she was
not very speedy, but for that Peter did not care a great deal. In light
weather most of the fishermen could put him in their wake, but when they
had to reef he could carry all sail, and drop them to leeward as if they
were so many corks. Peter and Randall now went to work to "brace up" the
_Petrel_, as she was called. They put some extra ribs in her, and built
a small deck before the mast. Then they put an extra row of reef points
in the mainsail, and set up a pair of extra heavy shrouds. Peter also
put a socket in the taffrail for a rowlock, so that in case of having to
run before a heavy sea an oar could be shipped to steer with.
"You know she'll work a good deal better with an oar in running off than
with the rudder," he said.
And Randall sagely answered, "That's what."
By the time the September gales were due the _Petrel_ was ready for
business, and whenever the weather looked threatening she was seen
pounding her way through the choppy seas near the mouth of the bay. No
wrecks occurred, however. Indeed, no vessels of any kind approached the
harbor, and the two young men were hard put to it to endure the ridicule
that greeted them on their return from each profitless cruise. But Peter
pluckily declared that their time would come, and Randall repeated his
unshaken opinion that that was what.
Men are still talking about the storm that visited that coast in October
of that year. It was the worst that had occurred within the memory of
the oldest inhabitant. Even old Tommy Ryddam, who had been around the
Horn three times, had weathered the Cape of Good Hope, and had been as
far north as Upernavik, said, "I 'ain't never seed it blow no harder."
And that was the first time that Tommy had ever made such an admission.
It began on a Wednesday night. The day had been oppressively warm for
that time of year, and as a result a light fog had set in early in the
morning. But before sundown the wind began to come in cold sharp puffs
out of the southeast, and the fog was soon cut into swirling shreds and
sent skimming and twisting away over the yellow land. Its disappearance
revealed a hard brassy-looking sky, and a gray sea running from the
horizon in great oily folds that broke upon the rocks outside of Porgy
Point and Mullet Head with a noise like the booming of distant guns, and
a smother of snowy spray.
"I reckon this'll be the gale that'll bring us a job," said Peter, as he
hoisted the mainsail on his boat.
"I shouldn't wonder," said Randall; "but it's going to be a corker."
His slangy prediction proved to be true. He and Peter cruised around
inside the mouth of the bay for an hour after sunset; but the great
breadth and weight of the swell that came brimming in between the two
headlands and the fast-increasing power of the wind sent them to shelter
for the night. In the morning they beat down under the lee of the
easterly shore, and landed on Mullet Head. Hauling up the boat, they
walked to the highest point of observation. So fierce was the wind that
they were forced to lie down. The sea was an appalling sight. It was
running in great serried ridges of gray and white that hurled themselves
against the land in mountainous breakers.
"We couldn't get out there if a dozen wrecks came," said Peter.
"So," answered Randall, "but we might pull some poor fellow out of the
sea."
"That's about all we could do."
The boys kept a constant watch all day, but not the faintest sign of a
sail hove in sight above the wavering horizon. The gale blew all day
Thursday and all day Friday. Such a sea had never been seen on the
coast, and many people went down to look at it. The boys maintained
their watch all day on Mullet Head, with the boat safe under its lee.
They knew they were helpless, yet they could not go away. People tried
to persuade or to ridicule them into doing so, but they remained. They
were pretty resolute boys, and were not easily turned from their
purposes.
On Saturday morning the wind shifted, and the gale showed signs of
moderating. By Saturday night it had fallen to a brisk wind, and the sea
had gone down somewhat. On Sunday morning the two boys sailed down to
Mullet Head to have another look around the horizon. The minister saw
them start, and reproved them for not staying at home to go to church.
But they said that they might go in the afternoon. As soon as they
reached their customary landing-place, they hauled up the boat and
walked up the hill.
"Look!" exclaimed Peter; "now that the gale is over a sail is in sight."
"That's a fact," said Randall. "A sloop."
"Yes; but doesn't she look queer to you?"
"No--hold on--yes. Her hull looks too big for her rig."
"That's it. There! Did you see that when she rose on that sea? She's a
schooner, but her mainmast is gone close to the deck. I saw the stump.
Look now!"
"Yes! I see it, I see it!" cried Randall; "and what's more, she's lost
her foretop-mast."
"That's so. It's broken off above the masthead cap."
"She must have had a pretty lively time of it with the gale."
"Sure enough. I wonder where she's bound?"
They watched her in silence for half an hour, and then Peter sprang to
his feet with an exclamation:
"Guinea-pigs and dogs! She's trying to make this harbor."
"That's what!" cried Randall, slapping his knee.
They watched her now with more interest than ever. She was not more than
two miles off the entrance now, and Peter was intensely interested.
Suddenly he started down the hill toward the boat.
"What is it!" cried Randall, following him.
"She's flying the flag union down, and she's so heavy in her movements
that I believe she's sinking."
With nervous haste the boys got their boat afloat, and hoisted the
mainsail. In a few minutes they were standing out of the mouth of the
harbor with the long swells underrunning their light craft. Somehow news
of the incoming vessel had reached Searsbridge, and several of the
residents had ridden down to the Head to see what was going to happen.
Some of them caught sight of the little dinghy running out, and waved at
her to return. But the boys were in earnest now, and were not to be
turned from their course.
"I knew I was right," said Peter. "She's sinking fast, and they're
trying to run her into shallow water."
"Do you think we can get to her in time?"
"We must do our best."
The mainsail ought to have had the last reef taken in, for the mast bent
like a whip, and the dinghy plunged heavily; but it was a time for
driving, if ever there was one.
"Look! look!" screamed Randall.
"Too late!" cried Peter.
The schooner, now half a mile away from them, made a great lurch
forward, threw her stern into the air, and settled down head first. The
top of her broken foremast protruded some ten feet above the surface.
"No, we're not too late!" shouted Randall.
"Right you are!" ejaculated Peter.
They had just discovered that two men had managed to clamber up on the
foretop-mast stump as the schooner went down, and were now clinging
there, waving their arms toward the boys.
"Get the heaving line ready, Randall," said Pete.
"Ay, ay," answered the willing boy.
Peter brought the dinghy broad under the lee of the mast, and getting a
good full on her let her luff up straight at the spar, knowing that the
sea would quickly kill her way.
"Stand by to catch the line!" he shouted to the men. "Heave!"
Randall hove the line with good judgment, and one of the wrecked sailors
catching it took a couple of turns around the mast with it. Randall now
hauled the dinghy up close enough to the mast for the two seamen to
swing themselves into her. They were gaunt, hollow-eyed, and exhausted,
and at Randall's bidding they lay down in the bottom of the dinghy. In
three-quarters of an hour the two boys had sailed back to their
landing-place inside Mullet Head. There they met the people who had come
down to see the wreck, and who now received them with cheers. The two
seamen were able to state that they were the sole survivors of a crew of
six, the other four having been carried overboard when the mainmast went
over Thursday night. Old Mr. Peddie volunteered to take the men up to
the town in his carriage, and as they climbed out of the boat he
exclaimed to one of them,
"Hold on! let me look at you! Aren't you Joseph Spring?"
"Yes," said the man, hanging his head; "I am."
"Well, boys," said Mr. Peddie, "you've done a fine Sunday-morning's
work. This is Joe Spring, who quarrelled with his father and ran away to
sea four years ago. There will be a happy reunion in one house to-day."
Peter and Randall have a fine Block Island boat now, the gift of their
admiring fellow townsmen.
WILLIE TUCKER.
SHORT ACCOUNT OF HIS CHRISTMAS TRIBULATIONS.
WASHINGTONVILLE, CHRISTMAS DAY.
Dear Mr. Editor:--Why is it that when a fellow tries to have some
fun, he always gets into trouble? Take two years ago this
Christmas, for instance, when I had a notion that I'd play a little
trick on old Santa Claus. My idea was to keep awake till he came
down, wedge up the chimney on him, and then go out and help myself
to a pair of reindeer--he'd have had enough left. Besides, I wasn't
going to _steal_ them, of course--just borrow them for a while and
hitch 'em to my double ripper. Now, I call that an innocent and
perfectly proper thing for any boy to do, but what was the result?
A long, lank, limp, hollow stocking in the morning--and no reindeer
stamping their feet and bleating in the wood-shed, either.
Well, this was two years ago, and I haven't been fooling around
much about Santa Claus since. Santa Claus can drive a procession of
reindeer a mile long if he wants to, and I won't touch one of them.
Santa Claus is all right in his way, but I think that Captain Kidd
was rather more _my_ kind of a man. Captain Kidd wasn't much on
filling anybody's stockings, but when he got alongside and grappled
the other fellow there was fun--genuine, innocent fun.
And I can't see that Captain Kidd always got into trouble when he
had a little fun, like a boy does now. You see, it was this way:
They had a Christmas tree over at the church last night. It was a
regular old-fashioned Christmas tree, which was the minister's
idea. Last Sunday says he: "Of late years Christmas trees have been
too much given up to children and such things. It was not that way
when I was a boy up at Hurricane Centre. There were presents for
everybody, old and young. Let us have a genuine, plain, old
Hurricane Centre tree."
The tree was set for last night, of course, and the committees and
folks and things were working on it all day. Fanny (she's my
sister) and Aunt Lou were over in the afternoon stringing pop-corn,
and falling off of step-ladders, and so forth. My brother Bob is
home from college, and he was over too; though Fanny said he didn't
do much but talk to the girls. That's just like Bob. The football
season has closed, and he has got his hair cut, and kind of exposed
his countenance again at last. Bob thinks he's going to be a
lawyer, but if he ever tries to prosecute me when I get to be a
pirate, he'll be sorry for it.
Along toward night ma asked me to run over to the church, and take
a little package of things which she wanted put on the tree.
"What's in it, ma?" I asked.
"A pair of Santa Claus's reindeer for you," says ma. They're always
throwing that thing up to me.
So I took the package and started. When I got there I found
everybody gone home to supper except Deacon Green, who was just
staying to keep the church. He took my package, and I says to him:
"Mr. Green, supper is all ready over at your house."
"How do you know?" asks he.
"I smelt it as I came along," I says. "Apple dumplings, I _think_."
"My, you don't say so!" says the Deacon. "I'm a good deal fond of
dumplings. 'Specially with maple syrup on 'em--_and_ plenty o'
butter."
"Yes, ma'am," says I. (I _always_ go and say "Yes, ma'am," to a
man.)
"Wish I could go over and get 'em while they're hot," says he.
"I'll stay here while you go, if you'd like," I said.
"Sure you wouldn't snoop 'round the tree?"
"Yes, ma'am," says I.
So the Deacon put on his mittens and went home.
Well, it was sort of lonesome and solemnlike waiting there in that
big hollow church, and so I went up and began _looking_ at the
tree. It was a big pine, all covered with beautiful things. I guess
I jarred the thing a little, and the label off of somebody's
present came fluttering down.
"Oh," says I to myself, "that won't do. If I don't put that back
somebody will be disappointed. I'll just shin up and fix it." So up
I went.
I looked a long time before I could find a package without a label
on it, and then after I did find one and got it on, I saw another
label on it; so it wasn't right after all. I looked around a little
more and found the right one at last, but when I turned to take off
the label I had put on, I couldn't for the life of me tell which of
the two it was, so I just jerked off one of 'em by guess and stuck
it on the present. Probably I got the wrong one--just my luck.
The tree was sort of bendy and wigglesome, and I saw I'd shaken off
several more tags, so I went down and got them. I was getting a
little tired of roosting up there like a Christmas bird, so I stuck
the labels around sort of promiscuouslike, and probably got most of
them wrong. I noticed a good many of the big parcels had small
labels, and _vice versa_, as Bob says, so I thought while I was
about it I might as well fix things up a little. So I put the big
labels on the big things and--_vice versa_ again. Some others I
guess I changed without any particular rule, which, I suppose, was
a bad thing to do, as my teacher says our actions should always be
governed by definite and intelligent rules, but I was tired and I
just stuck 'em about, hit or miss. I thought it would be kind of
funny, and maybe old-fashioned and Hurricane Centre like. Besides,
I wanted to be doing something--the teacher says idleness is a
vice, heard her say so more'n a thousand times.
Well, after awhile I heard scrunching in the snow outside. I got
down and went over and sat in our pew and tried to look just about
as much like a lamb as a boy not having any wool can look.
It was Deacon Green. Says he; "Young man, you were a little
mistaken about them apple dumplings. It was just a picked-up cold
supper, 'cause Miranda said to-morrow was Christmas, and we could
eat then."
"Then it must have been Mr. Doolittle's supper I smelt, ma'am,"
says I.
"Well, no matter; run along home and get yours," answered the
Deacon. So I did so.
After supper we all went over to the church. I sat in the outside
end of the pew because, of course, I didn't know what might happen.
Well, they had singing and speaking and such stuff. Then Mr. Doty,
the Superintendent of the Sunday-school, made a funny speech, with
easy jokes for children, and then they began to take down the
things and read 'em off to folks. The first few things on the lower
branches seemed to fit all right; then Tommy Snyder's great-grandma
got a pair of club skates. Folks looked surprised, but the next few
things appeared to be right, and nobody said anything. Then somehow
the minister got a red tin horn, and a yearling baby a pair of
silver-bowed spectacles, and Mrs. Deacon Wilkie a cigar-case, right
in succession. This made talk, but Mr. Doty went on. But things
seemed to get worse, and two or three old gentlemen got
rattle-boxes and such stuff, and a little girl got a gold-headed
cane, and Tommy Snyder's poor great-grandma was called again and
got a set of boxing gloves. There was a great uproar, and just then
Deacon Green got a teething-ring. I saw him rise up and motion for
silence. I put my hand on my stomach and says to ma,
"Ma, I don't feel well at all."
"Better run out in the vestibule and get some fresh air," says ma.
I ran. As I went out the door I heard Deacon Green saying something
about me. The air seemed to do me good, so I staid out. While I was
about it I thought I might as well run home and go to bed, so I did
so.
The next morning at breakfast there was some talk. I didn't succeed
in resembling a lamb so much as I had expected. But pa stood by me
as usual. Then, when it quieted down, I happened to think of
something, and I said,
"Ma, wasn't there anything on that tree for me?"
"Well," says ma, "I had understood from trustworthy sources that
there was to be a good-sized brass steam-engine on it for you, but
the engine was read off to a boy who lives over at Clear Brook, so
I suppose I must have been mistaken. Anyhow, I didn't say anything,
and he went off with it."
There seemed to be something wrong with my buckwheat cake, and I
didn't eat any more of it. I concluded I wasn't much hungry, and
left the table.
"Don't mind, Willie," said Bob, "you've got your reindeer yet."
That's the way it goes, you see, when a boy tries to have a little
harmless, innocent amusement. A pirate ship can't come along
looking for recruits any too soon to suit.
Yours truly,
WILLIE TUCKER.
A MODERN LABYRINTH.
BY WALTER CLARK NICHOLS.
Clickety-click! click! click! go the levers in the narrow brick house at
six o'clock. Rapidly yet surely five alert men, clad in blue railroad
blouses and trousers, rush about from handle to handle.
"Quick, Jim!" shouts the head man, "49, 61, and 72! There comes the
Boston express, and the Croton local only two minutes behind! Shove 'em
in there lively!"
"All right," responds Jim.
On the instant this lever is down, the others snapped up, and the
express train just out of the tunnel has a clean, clear track into its
haven at Forty-second Street. Three hundred yards before the station is
reached the flame-throated iron monster, uncoupled from its burden of
cars, darts forward on a siding like a spirited horse unharnessed from
its load, while the train glides forward with its own momentum, slowly
and more slowly as the brakes are applied, until it comes to a stop
under the depot shed. Hardly have the passengers poured forth when
another train rolls in, and then another, the pathway in each instance
cleared by those keen men at the levers in this tower-house of the yards
of the Grand Central station in New York city. For they only know the
intricacies of this interesting modern labyrinth where more iron paths
and by-paths are to be found, in all probability, than in any other
place of the same size in the world.
There is a strange fascination about this labyrinth. Business men on
their way to work and children on their way from school stop to watch
the scene. The light iron foot-bridges which span the tracks for several
blocks, saturated and blackened by the steam and smoke of the five
hundred engines which pass underneath every day, separate you by barely
two feet from the tops of the trains which run in and out of the great
union depot, and from the smoke-stacks of the engines which dart about
from siding to main track and from main track to round-house, where they
sleep and dream fire dreams at night.
And the chief heart-throb of all this incessant activity, the centre of
the iron labyrinth, in which Theseus himself, were he alive, would be
lost, is the smoke-begrimed tower-house in the middle of the yard, where
all the switching for the New York Central, the Harlem, and the New
Haven railroads in the vicinity of the tunnel is done. From every train
that comes in from or starts out for the West or the East through the
long smoky tunnel that leads into the heart of New York a pathway is
found by the clear-headed men in this house. Every rail on the many
tracks and sidings of the busy yard can be coaxed and compelled from
this house to do its part in forming a new wheel path. It is the busiest
tower-house in the world, according to the yard-master.
Suppose you enter this rectangular house with one of your railroad
friends and go up stairs. Here there is a long "key-board," as the men
call it, consisting of one hundred and four numbered iron levers. You
see the men in charge grasp lever after lever, apparently at random; you
hear the sharp click of these gunlike rods as they move backwards or
forwards, and then as you see a red light flash white or a white red two
blocks away, you are told by one of the men at the levers that a path
has been cleared for the Stamford local or the Empire State express. If
you look in the room underneath it seems like the interior of a huge
piano-board. Here are stiff-moving wires and bars, each one connected
above to its particular iron key. Beneath they spread out in every
direction, like the thread-like legs of a spider, each connected with
its special rail or switch or light, and never interfering with its
neighbor--so delicate the mechanism. As you go up stairs a second time,
to hear Mr. Anderson, the man in charge of the great key-board, talk
about the arrangements, you cannot help thinking again how like a
monster piano it is. To be sure the iron keys are pushed and pulled
instead of gently struck. But then what of that? They must be skilful
musicians at those keys, these men. Suppose a false note were struck,
what a discord would be sounded! It is a human symphony these men play,
where a wrong chord might bring death to many people.
But Mr. Anderson, the head operator in the tower-house, doesn't seem to
be thinking of these things. It is his duty and his work. He bends his
mind to it, and he never makes a mistake. For a few minutes now he gives
the direction of the work over to another man and speaks of the work.
Over five hundred "pieces of rolling stock"--as the railroad men speak
of trains and engines--have to be sent in and out of the depot and yard
in a day. These include nearly three hundred regular incoming and
outgoing passenger trains, the "stock" and baggage trains which ply
between there and Mott Haven, carrying empty cars and station freight,
and the "made-up" and "unmade" trains passing to and fro. When a through
Western or Boston express starts out of the station, the arrangement of
one or two levers by no means insures it a straight track into the
tunnel. Oftentimes a combination of ten or fifteen all over the
switch-board is necessary to give a train a straightaway track, and you
wonder, as you hear this, how the men ever learn the varying
combinations of keys. The train-despatcher in the depot notifies the men
in the tower-house on which road each arriving and departing train
is--whether New York Central, Harlem River, or New Haven--and they
instantly know the answer to the problem.
[Illustration: THE LABYRINTH AND THE TOWER-HOUSE AT GRAND CENTRAL
STATION.]
It is a noisy piano these men play, noisier and larger than in the
switch-house of the Pennsylvania Railroad yards in Jersey City. There
the electric pneumatic interlocking switch and signal system of Mr.
Westinghouse is in use. In this one man can do the work of several,
although many old railroad men believe that the operation of a switch
key-board by hand is the only one absolutely safe and reliable. This
key-board in the house at the Pennsylvania yards is a glass-topped case
about the size of a grand-piano box. The case is apparently full of
metal cylinders. About seventy handles project from the front of the
case--half of them numbered in black, the other half in red. Each is, or
seems to be, the handle of a cylinder. The train-director is in charge
of the room, and the young men under him touch the handles as easily as
piano keys when the different switch numbers are called out. Suppose he
calls out, "29, 21, 23, 20, 17, 13, 12, 7, 8!" One of the men touches
the black handles bearing these numbers, then the red. The switches
begin to waver up in the yard, though the gush of compressed air which
precedes the wavering cannot be heard. Finally, as the last of these
numbers is touched, a red signal in the yard droops from its horizontal
position to an angle of sixty degrees. Then an empty train comes out of
the shed from track 9 to 0 _viâ_ switches 29, 21, 23, 20, 17, 13, 12, 7,
and 8, as you note on the yard model--black ground, with bright brass
tracks--above the case. Although it seems so simple, it is really as
intricate as is the network of wires running down from the glass case
through the tower-base to the various switches.
It is early in the morning and late in the afternoon that there is the
greatest activity in the yards of the New York Central Railroad. Between
seven and nine in the morning so many trains come in that frequently the
switching necessary to give them clear ways in and out has meant the
moving of 1400 levers in the tower-house. Hardly an engine, as it passes
Forty-ninth Street, dragging its train on its way in, but darts away
from the cars to a siding, leaving the train to roll in by itself,
controlled by the trainmen at the brakes. You are not conscious of this
if you are on the incoming cars. But as you get out and walk along the
platform you note that yours is an engineless train. It saves time, this
swerving of the engine off to right or left, and it is immediately ready
to drag another load out. But the alertness of these tower-house men is
here called into keenest play, for but a second elapses between the
arrival of the engine and its train at the self-same switch, and each
must have a separate path.
Although you can plainly see all this rush and bustle on a winter
morning just as the sun is creeping over the top of the Grand Central
palace, can note so clearly, as you stand on the bridge, which switches
are turned for a particular train, and can count exactly the thirty-two
tracks from the round-house alongside Lexington Avenue to the "annex
sheds" on Madison Avenue, it is far more interesting to visit the yard
late in the afternoon, just after dusk. Then you can stand on one of the
bridges and see a brilliant panorama--the moving flash-lights of the
engines, the quickly shifting red and white signal-lamps, the
brilliantly lighted outgoing trains, standing out in relief against the
dark narrow bulk of an "unmade" train on a distant siding, and, a short
distance away, veiled every now and then by puffs of smoke from an
impatient engine, the dazzling arc-burners of the station.
Shut your eyes, then open them, and again almost shut them, and give
yourself up to the scene. It is fairy-land, all these moving lights,
this brilliant panorama. Close your eyes still more till you can just
peep out at the motion around you. It is no longer the iron-threaded
yard of the Grand Central station. You are in the midst of some wild,
strange region. Great dragons snorting flame and smoke move uneasily
about. Black serpents with eyes of flashing fire and long dark bodies
trail their way through the flat country past you, and disappear in that
cavern of a tunnel above. On all sides are weird noises. But in the
midst of it all you half dreamily see, not many feet away from you, the
men at the levers in the tower-house, playing their mechanical music so
well on the great key-board that every iron monster is charmed, and
keeps safely and quietly his own pathway.
FOR KING OR COUNTRY.[1]
A Story of the Revolution.
BY JAMES BARNES.
[1] Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 836.
CHAPTER X.
TROUBLOUS TIMES.
The little camp-fire at which Colonel Hewes and some of the officers
were sitting was just outside the line of heavy fortifications which the
Americans had thrown up some weeks previously.
Colonel Hewes, as soon as he heard George's answer, welcomed the young
soldier heartily, and, searching in the saddle-bags that were lying on
the ground, he secured some bread and a slice of ham, which George
accepted, as he had not tasted food since early in the morning.
For two days nothing was done, but at last Washington's plans were
perfected, and under the cover of a heavy fog nine thousand men were
ferried across to the city of New York. As George was about to embark
with the body of discouraged stragglers in one of the small boats
impressed for the service, he heard a familiar voice beside him.
Carter Hewes! He started suddenly. There he stood. A cape was over his
shoulder, his left arm was in a sling.
"Oh, Carter, are you wounded?" he exclaimed, before the other had
noticed who it was that called to him.
"George, dear friend, you've escaped?" answered Carter, wheeling. Then
he noticed the anxious glance. "Merely a scratch," he went on. "Come
over with my company, at least what is left of them--it's been bad work.
What! a Lieutenant! Hurrah! I told you so."
The soldiers crowded into the flat-boat, and soon the two friends were
drifting across the river.
"Your father's proposal has gone to the Convention," said George.
"That relieves me," said Carter. "It is a pet scheme of his, and it was
dreadful careless of me to forget and carry it in my pocket. See; do you
remember this?" He held out the note-book.
"Why, it's mine!" cried George. "Where did you get it?"
Questions and answers followed in quick succession, and the young
officers seemed to forget that they were retreating with a defeated
army.
As soon as they had landed they made their way past the Fly Market, near
the river.
"It looks as if a plague were in town," thought George to himself. He
had just finished relating the incidents that led to his sudden
promotion, and had listened to Carter's tale of the adventures in the
strange house.
Carter was leaning on his arm as they went up the street, and suddenly
he stopped. "Take a good look at this man, here on the right. Who is
he?" he asked.
As George turned he saw in the group of spectators a strange figure
leaning on a stick. His clothes were ragged, and his hat flopped about
his ears; a patch was over his left eye, but despite all this the young
Lieutenant recognized him in an instant.
"That's my old schoolmaster, Jabez Anderson. The Tory-hunters haven't
found him, evidently," he said, quietly, "and I certainly shall not
betray him. Though he's rabid for the crown."
"It seems to me that I have met him some place," returned Carter. "But,
come to think, he resembles a portrait I've seen and can't place for the
life of me."
What Carter was thinking of was a reflection in an old gilt-framed
mirror, although he did not know it.
"He's an odd fish," said George, as they stepped forward again, "and
used to give us long lectures on our duty to the King, and all in his
own way, for he told minutely the grievances of the colonies, and then
admonished us to be steadfast. I often even then felt like taking up
cudgels on the opposite side of the question. I owe him no ill-will."
As he spoke he looked in his companion's face. "You are suffering, dear
friend," he said. "We must find some place to rest."
"It's nothing. I shall be right in a few days," murmured Carter.
George noticed that he was pale, however, and that during the last
half-hour or so he leaned heavily on his arm.
"Courage; I know of just the place," he said.
"We won't be left quietly here very long," responded Carter. "Howe has
us on the hip, I fear me. Let me sit down on this step a minute."
"Mr. Frothingham! Mr. Frothingham!" called a voice just at this
juncture.
George looked around. There stood Mrs. Mack.
"Thank Dame Fortune," said George to his companion, "here's my old
landlady; she will look after us, I'll warrant."
He stepped over to where the honest woman stood. She spoke before he had
time to say a word.
"I hev somethin' fer ye to the house, sir," she said; "and shure you
lift a foine suit of clothes."
George's heart bounded. He needed clothes badly enough, but had no
recollection of having left anything but an old worn coat.
"Won't yez be after comin' ter the house!" continued the woman. "I ken
git you a bite to ate, and you kin stay there. Shure ye look that
tired."
George easily got permission from his Captain, and dropped out of the
ranks. With the help of the widow he succeeded in getting Carter at last
tucked away in a great soft bed, where he immediately went to sleep. The
last thing he said was, "George, this is the house they took me to, only
I had the little room upstairs." George stole away, intending to ask an
explanation from the good Irish woman, and solve the mystery.
"Whisper," said Mrs. Mack, taking her old boarder by the arm before he
could begin his questioning. "I was on the look fer ye. Here!"
What was George's surprise, and even consternation, when Mrs. Mack
handed him an envelope. He opened it. It was heavy with gold
coin--English guineas, bright and clinking.
"Where did they come from? Where? Where?" he exclaimed.
"Shure I don't know, sir," said Mrs. Mack. "They wus lift here by a
little old man who wus deaf and dumb."
George was puzzled.
"They are shure fer you, sir," she said, "bekase he described you."
"And if he was deaf and dumb, how could he describe me?"
The good woman appeared confused. "And shure, sir, wid signs," she
answered. "Oh, I will git the suit of clothes."
She disappeared, but came back immediately. Again was the young soldier
almost frightened. He never owned a coat like that, and surely never
possessed such a fine pair of buckskin breeches; but there they were.
"Some mistake," said George, looking at the yellow facings, the large
brass buttons, and the Lieutenant's shoulder-knots. "I won't take them
until I know where they came from," said he, decidedly.
Now may the Recording Angel forgive the good washer-woman, for he must
have put down against her name that day a fib of the straightest,
whitest kind.
"I made thim fer ye," she said, unblushingly. "If all the army was
dressed as foine as that the Ridcoats would take off their hats to ye."
The fact was Mrs. Mack may have referred to the lace trimmings when she
said that she had made them, for that was all that she had contributed.
Aunt Clarissa must have relented! At last it dawned on the young
soldier. Why had he not written to her? He resolved to do so at once. If
he could find some way of sending her the letter.
In a few days Carter was able to move, and Colonel Hewes--who had been
ordered to New Jersey to help his cousin mould cannon-balls--took him
with him out to the estate. Mrs. Mack had acknowledged the fact that the
wounded lad had been her guest before, under certain mysterious
circumstances. But she could not or would not explain the method or
means of his previous arrival, insisting that he was brought to her by
two "dark men" whose language she could not understand.
Two days after Carter's departure George was leaning against the side of
a little brick guard-house--he was officer of the guard--his thoughts
far away, busy with the good old times, when he saw down the street some
one crossing from a path that led along the common. His heart beat
quickly. He would know that shuffling gait, that was yet so strong,
amongst a thousand. In half a minute his long young legs were striding
in the direction of the retreating figure, and in another he had grasped
the man by both shoulders and swung him sharply against a tall board
fence.
"Cato, you old rascal!" he exclaimed, shaking his shoulders back and
forth roughly, though the tears of joy had gathered in his eyes.
"Why, Mas'r George," came the answer with a jerky emphasis. "How
y-y-youse growed, and I done guess you pritty strong too, but you
needn't try for to p-prove it no more."
It was not until this that George remembered that he must have changed
somewhat, and that he did not know really how strong he had become, for
it only seemed yesterday that the old man had been able to lay him
across his knee, or carry him by the slack of his little homespun coat.
"Cato," he said, "how are you all at home?"
"Dat's what I's come to tell you, young mas'r," said the old darky.
"Dere's a peck of trubble over yander, and I's got a letter fer you from
Mistis Grace."
George took the crumpled paper and read it hastily. How she must have
changed--his little sister--to write and think such thoughts as these!
For the letter told how she prayed every night that he would come back
safe and sound, and that the great General Washington would whip the
British and drive them from the country. "Aunt Clarissa would not let me
write to you," concluded the letter, "and does not know that Cato has
gone to look for you. Good-by, dear, dear George.
"From your little Rebel Sister,
"GRACE."
"God bless her sweet heart!" said Lieutenant Frothingham, and he paused
for a minute. Oh, it seemed so long ago, and William, his dear brother,
was in England, and could not understand.
"Cato," he said, suddenly, breaking away from his train of thought, for
the old darky had not spoken, "did you bring any money for me some time
ago and leave it with Mrs. Mack?"
"No, sah, 'fo' de Lawd, I didn', Mas'r George, but I's got some now," he
said, hurriedly, diving into the capacious pockets of his flapping
waistcoat. He brought out a worn leather wallet. It contained two gold
pieces and a half-handful of silver. "It's yours, sah," he said.
George looked at him earnestly. "Did Mistress Frothingham send it to
me?" he asked.
The old darky shifted uneasily. "Yes, sah," he said, faintly.
"Cato, you're telling me a lie," said George, once more laying his hand
on the colored man's shoulder. "I don't need the money, and you know
that it is yours. I am rich now, Cato." He jingled the gold coins in his
own pocket.
The old darky had not replied, but a huge tear rolled down his face.
"T'ank God for dat, honey," he said. "Old Cato didn't know." Then, as if
to change the subject, he went on more cheerfully. "Cunel Hewes's cousin
is runnin' de big works, sah. Dey is moulding a big chain over
dere--biggest you ever seed. Dey done goin' to tro it 'cross de Hudson
Ribber to keep dem Redcoat boats from goin' up. He's makin'
cannon-balls. I reckon he'd like to use yo' foundry."
"Well, what's to prevent him?" said George.
"'Deed ol' miss' won't let 'im," responded Cato, seriously. "She'd fight
'em toof and nail."
George smiled. "Have you heard her speak of me?" he asked.
"No, Mas'r George," said the old negro, shaking his head. "I heered her
tell Mistis Grace dat--dat--"
"Well?" said George.
"Dat you wus dead to her, you 'n' massa."
A drum rolled down the street, and some ragged soldiers were seen
leading some thin, unkempt horses from the stable across the way. Two
non-commissioned officers came out of the little house before which Cato
and his young master had been standing. One was buckling on his heavy
leather belt.
"Orders to march, I reckon," he said to his companion. George
acknowledged the salute they gave him, and the old darky removed his hat
and bowed.
"Wus dat Gineral Washington?" he asked, in an awed whisper, looking at
the burly figure of the first speaker, who had a great lump of cheese in
his hand, which he was endeavoring to slip into the pocket of his coat.
"No, Cato," said George; "that was a sergeant of artillery."
He was scribbling a few lines, addressed to his sister, on a bit of
rough paper. He thrust it into Cato's hands. "Good-by, old friend," he
said, and placed his arm about the faithful darky's shoulder and gave
him a squeeze, as he had often done in the good old days.
"I's not goin' back," said Cato, shaking his head. "I's goin' wid you as
yo' body-sarvant."
"You can't," said George. "Prithee do you think that a Lieutenant is
allowed a servant?"
"I don't know," said the old darky. "I spec you'll be a gineral 'fore
very long."
"No, no, Cato, you must go back," said his young master.
"Good-by--good-by."
He turned quickly and ran off toward the guard-house. Where could the
gold have come from? It was puzzling.
Cato looked after him, and placing the note in the crown of his big hat,
walked slowly away.
An orderly met the young Lieutenant at the door. "Your presence is
requested at headquarters, sir," he said, and hurried off.
The city was going to be abandoned, and to George Frothingham was given
the important charge of conducting the precious powder train through the
lanes and by-ways of Manhattan Island to the new position Washington had
taken at Harlem Heights.
[Illustration: LUMBERING VANS TRUNDLED AND JOLTED ALONG WITH THE
REAR-GUARD.]
At noon the caravan was ready to start. Besides the lumbering vans, two
brass field-pieces trundled and jolted along with the rear-guard. George
knew well the best route to take, and gave the orders to push ahead up
the old "King's Highway"--the post-road to Boston.
At a street corner as they passed were standing some soldiers of one of
the commands that had not received marching orders. Running out into the
street, one of the men touched a tall private on the elbow. It was
Thomas, the former porter in Mr. Wyeth's office. He held in his hand a
buckskin bag of bullets.
"Brother Ralston," he said, "here are some leaden pills. Shoot straight
with them." Then he noticed George, and saluted. Pouring something out
in his hand, he came up close. "Slip them into your pocket for a
keepsake, Mr. Frothingham," he said. "They are some of those that were
moulded out of the statue of King George himself."
George took them, and remembered the time when he and his brother had
looked at this same statue when they had that first unhappy parting with
Carter Hewes three years before. How differently had things terminated.
He smiled sadly to himself as he slipped the new shining bullets into
the pocket of his coat.
As they trudged along through the hot sun and the dust, a young officer,
scarcely nineteen, galloped up and down the line, hurrying on those in
the rear, and keeping the column well together to prevent straggling. He
did not shout his orders, but talked in a low, intense voice; his
movements were quick and nervous, but his graceful figure sat erect on
his horse, and he seemed to take in everything with a rapid glance of
his handsome deep-set eyes. George saw at once that it was his friend
who had lent him his first Lieutenant's uniform, and whose name he had
forgotten to ask. Chagrined, he thought that he could only explain that
the wet had ruined everything, and the gay coat had been discarded.
"Who is he, that he should assume such airs?" said one of the slouching
rear-guard that had been swelled by stragglers from various commands in
advance, for the young officer had hastened him on by giving him a sharp
dig in the shoulder with his foot as he rode up the line.
"'Tis young Aaron Burr," was the response.
"Humph! the young coxcomb!" had exclaimed the first soldier.
"Coxcomb, perhaps, but a game one, I'll warrant you," had come the
answer.
The last time the proud young officer had ridden down the line, his
tired horse dotted and blotched with foam, he had caught sight of the
young Lieutenant, and had ridden up to him.
"Well met, comrade Frothingham!" he said, with a fascinating smile.
"Take charge of these lazybones. Stop their mouths, and make them use
their legs."
He cut with apparent playfulness at the shoulder of one of the belated
ones nearest to him.
The blow stung, nevertheless, but the man only cringed, and hastened on
like a jaded horse, frightened to further exertion. George looked at his
face carefully. It was the pale youth with the fishy eyes who had been a
clerk in Mr. Wyeth's employ with him. They had cordially disliked each
other.
It was good that the rear-guard had hastened, for scarcely had they
crossed to the heights at Harlem, where Washington was waiting, when the
British appeared from east and west. A battery of Yankee artillery--the
two brass pieces--had taken possession of a little knoll, and they
roared alternately and held the victors in check. George placed his
force along the slope, and took command of the battery. At the sound of
the guns and the smell of the white sulphurous smoke our young hero's
heart once more began to beat with that strange unaccountable
excitement. As he faced his men about, he noticed private Ralston kneel
down behind a stump, and soon the bullets made from King George's statue
were singing across the meadow. The pursuit stopped at the bottom of the
hill.
That night George and his weary companions rested in the hay of a small
barn on the hill-side that overlooked the beautiful village of
Bloomingdale.
He was too tired to sleep, and his thoughts ran rampant. What must
William think of him? What was his brother doing? Why could not he see
the right side? Oh, the bitterness of it! When would it end? Perhaps one
of those bullets whose sound he now knew so well would settle things for
good and all. If only William were here by him!
"Look back at the city!--look!" said a voice from the hay.
Far to the southward great red tongues of flame were leaping against the
sky; billows of smoke swept up and caught the reflection of the flames,
and sparks filled the air and danced out over the river. The city was on
fire.
As George watched the conflagration from the window of the hay-mow,
which was now crowded with excited soldiers, some men on horseback
passed by beneath him.
"There's a warm reception for them," said a short thick-set man with a
round chubby face. His voice had a cheery sound.
"I don't think that it was fired by our directions, General Putnam,"
came the answer.
"Probably it was done by the British themselves. They're not above it.
Gadzooks, it is a grand sight!" said the short man, "and many a Tory
heart is thumping with fear against its Tory ribs, I'll warrant ye."
There came a pause, and then the speaker added, "What was the name of
the lad who saved the powder train?"
"Aaron Burr," was the answer.
"No, not he--the young Lieutenant, I mean--the one who brought the news
from Staten Island?"