Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1886-04-28
A BRAVE MECHANIC.

I'm The NOuvelle Revue was a very pow
erful story of the Franco PruSSian war.
/ from which we selected the finale for
! translation. The narrative concerns the
| efforts of PrusSian artillery officer to
| compel French machinist TO repair a
road engine destined to draw a monster
cannon to the siege of Paris. The German
machinists and engineers have been killed;
| the Frenchman refuses to do the work
! Finally by seZing and maltreatIng the
wife and child Of the mechanic. he is
! forced To obey How he obeys the follow
ing recital will tell
The place where the Prussians had left
/ their locomotive was about half a league
from the village, on the plateau. OF
! course we were all anxious to see the
| thing-just as anybody is curious TO see
what comes from distance. So | said,
| Ma fol, let us all go look at it! The Prus
slams are not going to eat us" Six or seven
Of us started after jacques, keeping step
| behind the Prussian escort.
| We soon saw in the middle Of the road a
| big black thing guarded by small force
Of men who seemed to have been en-
camped there all night. 1t was the
damnahle machine. sure enOugh-a road
locomotive, | believe they call il; and be
hind it, upon two cars all bound with iron,
was cannon and Its carriage. Lord, sir,
if you could have seen that cannon. A
monster cannon, God have mercy on Us
to think that people can invent such
things. Why, two men could easily have
sat in the muZZle OF il, God knows how
many quintals it weighed One shot from
it would have made hole in a house from
the attic To the cellar. And when we
'heard that a gun of that Calibre had
range of nearly seven miles, we thought TO
ourselves, sadly enough. that the Parisans
We're not going TO have pleasant time of
it. Only, you can understand, il was no
easy job TO move mass like that. II
would have taken more than thirty horses
just to move it. Nothing but steam could
move the thing. and there was the en-
gineer killed and the locomotive broken!
All" we thought to ourselves, what a
pity Jacques ever allowed himself to he
caught! If he could only manage now 10
disarrange something. SO that the ma
chinery wouldn't work"
But no-he went TO work at once; and in
the turn Of a hand the locomotive was all
right again; for Jacques was a tip-top ma
chinist let me tell YOU, Then, while they
were getting up steam heard him giving
all sorts of explanations TO the German
commandant. The officer was sly old
dog, and he was afraid about moving the
gun down the slope of the hill. But
Jacques tried to reassure him; he said he
would slacken off at the entrance of the
village: he would put on the brakes; he
would lock the hind-wheels; If necessary,
he could reverse steam. Don't be at all
afraid" he said; I'll answer for every
thing All those kind of engines know me
when put my hand on them. Only you
had better send some men there to shovel
away the snow upon the slope. II might
cause us TO slip
You must know that it had showed very
heavily eight days ago. Since then the
snow had been trampIed down by the feet
of people passing by, but between the
paving stones it had remained solid, and
during the night there had been a hard
frost, so that the road glittered like look
ing glass. The commandant had noticed
all this You are right he said 10
Jacques And few minutes afterward
all the Prussians in the village were at
work clearing the highway with picks and
shOvels and brooms; and with spades they
the bottom.
Jacques was waiting there all the time.
The locomotive was all right; he sat down
on it, and smoked his pipe as carelessly as
if he was at home. Still the German COM
mander was not quite confident about
things When the time came to start
saw him call lieutenant up, and say
something in German heard every syl-
oh lt,f I rnv,1l fa1I NNhaf
The lieutenant kept answering va, com
mandant! va, commandantN Then l
saw him pull out his revolver and climb
on the locomotive besides Jacques; and
the officer shouted from his horse:
See here, you engineer-the first move
ment you mat to get away, you will be
shot"
"Shotm-that was all the brute knew
how TO say! jacques simply shrugged his
shoulders.
Il don't want to get away" he an
swered. But To make sure of things the
German officer ranged his men in two
lines, one on either side of the engine;
then he took the head of the column, and
shouted something in German, and gave
the command, Forward, march, The
engine whistled, painted, tugged with all
steam; the cannon quivered and moved
with tremendous, gathering Of iron; and
the whole affair began to advance slowly
between the two lines Of soldiers slowly
marching along the level road.
We-the rest Of us,-ran ahead to the
village to tell the people that the cursed
machine was coming; and all the folks
men, women and children-ranged them
selves along the roadside To see it pass. In
n little while some body shouted, Here she
she COmes!" And there il
way, sure enough, on top of the slope,
right against the sky-all black and smok-
ing. (IOu can see the place from here,
sir, if you lean little this way 1t is just
ten steps from our house You see where
the road ends, and the street pavement
begins? That's where the descent begins,
and there is a little slope before you come
to the big one. --a1
At that moment the German officer 1
turned in his saddle, and shouted to
Jaques:
Take care"
"All right" said JaCques, I'm going to
put on the brakes"
Well, sir, if | live 100 years, I'll never
forget what happened the next minute
no-and nobody who saw it could ever
forget it. Then 1 understood why Jacques
had ordered his wife and son to leave the
village, and go TO their uncle's. 1t would
have made them crazy for life to have
seen what did.
Lord! instead Of putting on the brakes,
he suddenly put on all steem-leaped at
the heutenant-wrench the revolver
from his hands, and held him fast with an
iron grip, shouting with all the force of
his great lungs, -vive Ia France!"-And
the engine leaped forward, and rushed