The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1883-06-07

49, AAASs IVY I'LL t11ou olS v ~
stretch of track through the valley, they
We're making sixty miles an hour. The
train fairly flew. Jack could feel the
air strike his face like a sharp wind,
though it was a balmy spring day;
"Then an awful thing happened! The
great connectiug-rod of the driving
wheel on the right of the engine broke.
Jack seemed to live all his life over in
that one terrible instant when he saw
the end of the rod swing upward. 1t
struck the cab under him and dashed it
into a thousand pieces, and he knew
no more till a horrible agony awoke
him where he had fallen senseless on
the engine.
Burned and almost blind, with the
flesh scalded and torn from his hands,
he remembered his engine, with its
open throttle, leaping on to certain de-
struction. He seemed to see the pas
sengers inside the long train, as so
many times in the old days when he
called the morning papers through the
cars.
"He knew how they looked and what
they were doing-the men reading,
smoking, talking of the elections, the
price of grain, Or how stocks went up
last week; women, with Growing,
dimpled babies in their arms; little chill
dren crowding to the windows, vainly
trying to count the whining telegraph
poles; young, happy couples going on
wedding-journeys maybe, and others
coming home who had been long away.
"He remembered that, as he hurried
to his place at the front, that day, a
little girl with a cloud of golden hair
leaned from a car-window, to give one
more good-by kiss to her father on the
platform. Take good care of mamma,
darling!' he had heard the gentleman
say.
1.-The hreman-no coward, either,
was Tim HANDBOOK, but with wife and
babes at home-let himself down from
the tender and escaped. So might my
Jack have done. But he crept along
the side of the leaping engine, carefully
and painfully he swung himself into his
place, and with every motion of his
hands an untold agony, he reversed the
engine and put on the a~ir-brake.
Then the train stopped, snatched
back from the pits mouth, and they
took my boy from his post-.faithful
and true!'
at was a long time before Jacks
burns were healed. The road-people
came often to see him-no men could
have been kinder-and every week his
wages came in full.
"But n evening, after he had begun
to get out a little, one of his mates came
in. Come, Jack, old fellow, you'll be
moped to death here!' he said. you
want a change. There's a big meeting
of the road-folks over at the hall to:
night. I'm just on my way. Come
along!'
"'What sort of a meeting? said Jack.
$50, 1 can't say exaotly-something
interesting, they told me, and everv-
body invited
"He stole a queer look at me, and l
knew he wanted me to help him. So,
as 1 really thought it might do Jack
good, I said:
Eyes, Jack, go along with Tom
But I'm not presentable with this
facet said Jack.
"'Pshaw, man! it's evening, and
nobodyn notice. Leastways, they
needn't!'
with a little more coaxing, Jack set
off with him. 1 had hardly heard the
gate click, when thedoor opened again,
and Jenny Brown came in like a sprite.
"'Quick! quick, Mrs. Burton! Put
on your bennett she whispered.
Where? What do you mean?' 1
said, for I was frightened.
ITO the meeting! Hurry, or we
shall be late!'
"She was tying my bonnet-strings
under my chin, as she spoke, and she
had the house-door locked and me
down the ~garden-path and out of the
back-gate, fairly without my will. She
hurried me across the square and
pushed me through the crowd around
the hall-entrance.
81 was out of breath with
ness and fast walking, so we sat down
in a back seat. The room was full.
There were a great many ladies there,
and on the platform sat the Superinten-
dent and several of the Directors of the
road. Everybody seemed to be whisper
ing and smiling and looking backwards
towards the door, and [ looked too.
though L didn't know why.
"Then the door opened and Jack
came in with Tom. Iheard somebody
on the other side of me whisper, That's
he" and another and another, and a
rustic crept through the place, and then,
all at once, such a cheer went up as, l
can truly say, 1 eve heard in all my
life before-no, not even when the
troops came home from the war. The
people stood up, and the ladies waved
their white handkerchiefs.
"The Superintendent tried to sneak.
and raped on his little table, but all in
vain, until the crowd had had their
three times three. And through it all
l watched my boy. He looked around
him, dazed at first, by all the tumult,
and trying to know what it meant; but
wherever he might turn his eyes he met
a hundred others smiling on him, and a
score of hands stretched out to him as
he passed, and, all at once-he knewi
so sir, cannot tell you aboutit! How
they carriedhim up to the front, though
not on the platform-there he would not
go-how they found me out and made
me sit beside him; how there were
speeches and hand-shakings and laugh
ing and crying.
"And, at last, the Superintendent said
that there was a little child there, the
granddaughter of the President of the
road, who had been with her mother on
the train that day, and that she had
peen selected by many grateful friends
present a little token to the man
whose faithful courage had saved so
many lives.
"Then a beautiful lady, all in soft,
rustllng silk, came up the aisle, leading
the loveliest child I ever saw, with a
great glory of golden hair around her
head, like the picture of an angel. Ifelt
Jack start, for it was the very child
whose face had come to him in that
awful'moment on the flying engine.
"The little thing let go her mothers
hand as she came near, looking up with
blue eyes, and in her small fingers
was a purse of gold. You could see the
great coins shining through the silk net
ting. She held it up to him, and all the
room was still as death. Iheard one great
rise in my boys throat, and then he
lifted the child in his arms, and stood
nm. hOIdInO hal. cfrairht opI +o1I