The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1881-08-04
HOW TOM RAN THE ENGINE
WITHOUT WOOD OR WATER.

Once upon q time q rich man built a
school for boys, in which they might
study surveying, engineering, mechanics,
and the sciences one needs to know to be
q railroad man. This man began life as
train boy, and steadily pushed his way
up to be fireman, engineer, master me-
chanic, and finally President of railroad.
He often said his own chance in life
would have been better if he could have
gone to school when boy, and learned
from books about steam and engines,
levels, inclines, and curves, before he
undertook TO fire boiler or take a loco
motive over the road. As it was, he got
his education by hard knocks, heavy
work On the engines foot plate, and
weary toll in the machine shop. So it
happened he built the school close to
the repair shops of the road of which he
was President. He put good teachers
and good books in the school, and then
opened it, free, to the soEs of the brake
men, conductors, engineers, and other
men employed on the line. In the school
the boys were to study the science of
the railroad and locomotive. and then, if
they afterward went to work on the road,
they would not have such hard time as
the train boy who became President.
Twice every year the President offered
a Waltbam watch as IL prize to the boy
in the school who should write the best
composition on any subject connected
with the things they had been studying,
or anything in relation to engines or
railroads.
Tom Stayboltt, whose father was con-
ductor on the night express, had been in
the school three years, and had tried five
times for the prize, and lost it every
time. Tom. was regarded by all the
school. He suffered in his speech, and
his handwriting was as stiff as a switch
rod, yet he was always at the head of his
class. You could never trip him on any
knotty question as to whether the cylin-
ders were on top of the boilers or under
the tender. He knew the name and use
of every bit of metal in an engine, and
it was believed by all the boys that he
was a good engineer, and could take bis
fathers train right through to the juno
ton, without running past red light, or
,t-uct OF Fj,n
The semi-annual prize had been an
nounced, and nearly every boy in the
school was busy over his composition.
Il, it's no use, b b-boys; I shall not
try for the PIP prize. l can't write, and
I never can t-t-tell-tell what | know
If they would give me a prize for doing
something, l think 1 might g-g-get it.
Tom was great favorite in the school,
and not one of the boys laughed at this
speech. They were taught manners, as
we'll as mechanics, in that school, and
the boys we'll knew that what Tom said
was true. They might write compost
tons and get prizes, but when it came
to doing the things, why Tom Stayboltt
would beat them all.
The day of the prize giving drew near,
and every boy save Tom was hard at
work over his composition. He had tried
five times, and each time the teachers
had said his composition was very bad
indeed, with the wrong words, awkward
sentences, and punctuation that was
truly awful. Now it happened that the
day before the prize was to be given, a
new locomotive arrived on the railroad,
and stood, without wood or water, on the
track of the repair-shop yard. 1t had
been hauled up by the freight train, and
had never been used on the road. After
school a number of the boys went over
to the yard to see the new engine, and
among them was Tom Stayboltt.
1t vas first, class passenger engine,
built for high speed, and looking very
handsome in its new paint and shining
brass work. There We're several men
looking at the engine us the boys came
up, and they gathered round to hear
what might be said.
San empty engine" remarked one of
the men, always seems to me a very
helpless thing. 1t is so big and heavy,
it is impossible to move it without steam
power, and yet it will not only move
itself, but will drag many times its weight
at forty miles az hour over the line.
'It is not the engine that moves, said
another man. "It's the wood or coal or
water-the fuel and steam. If it were
not Tor the fire and water inside, il could
never move at all
u can make her go without w-w-wood
or water"