Passaic City record., 1891-09-26
CROOKED JOE"
By MARY A. P. sTANsBURY.

A great railway depot may not be the
best school for boy, yet poor little Joe
Bryan had scarcely known any other.
he could Tot remember when the lcEg
waiting-room, with their tiled floors and
dreary rows of stationary settees, and
crowds of hurrying people, were not
quite as familiar to him and more hcme-
like than his mothers small, bare house,
which he knew as little more than a place
Tor eating and sleeping.
At an age when any ordinary baby
might have been frightened into convul-
sions by the shrek of a locomotive, Joe,
securely fastened in his cab, would stare
for hours through the great window, un-
disturbed by the incessant rush and roar
of arriving and departing trains.
He had been only six months old
when the dreadful accident happened
which, at one fell stroke, made him
fatherless and transformed him from a
strong, well-developed infant, to pitt
full creature, which even death refused
to take.
The older yard men told the story even
yet-how young Michael Bryan, as
straight and manly fellow as ever left
his green, old, native island for the bet
ter chances OF the new world this side
the sea, came whistling out of the round
house that morning and stepped hastily
from before an incoming locomotive,
neither seeing nor hearing another rush
ing up the parallel track. His mates
cried out to him-too late! Nobody
who saw it would ever forget the look
of agony which distorted his handsome
face in that one horrible instant, when
he recognized his doom, or the perpen-
dicular leap into the air, from which he
fell back beneath the crunching wheels.
In the excitement and CONSERVATION oi
the time no messenger had been sent in
advance to prepare the poor young wife
for her trouble, and she stood IN the
doorway with her baby growing in hel
arms, when the stout bearers paused al
her gate with their mang.ed burden. she
uttered a terrible cry and fell fainting-
the child's tender back striking the sharp
edge of the door stone.
"What pity that it was not killed
outright said everybody but the mother.
She herself always insisted thst only her
constant watching over the little, flick
ering life kept her from going in the
first dreadful months OF her bereave-
ment.
The officers of the railway company
were kind to poor Mary Bryan. They
paid the expenses of the burial, and afte
little Joe had slowly msnded, employed
her about the depot to scrub the floor:
and keep the glass and woodwork bright
and neat.
When Joe was seven years old bis
mother sent aim to school. He went pa
tiently, day after day, making no com
plant but she awoke suddenly one nigh
to find him sobbing his heart out on th'
pillow beside her. Only by dint o
long coaxing was she able to find out tn
cause Of his grief. Some of the roughel
boys-more thoushtless than cruel, lie
us hope--had called him ''Humpy," and
asked if he carried bag of meal on hi
back.
Mary famed with the fierce anger o
motherhood.
.nou shan't go another day." she de
elared. ''The rufiansi l won't hay
my darlin' put upon by the likes o
themi"
So Joe's schooling had come to an IN
timely end. Yet, meagre as was bis stocl
of book learning, the development O
his mind far outstripped the growth o
his stunted and deformed body. Every
body liked tie patient little fellow, tug
ging manfully at his mothers heav.
water buckets and running willingly a
every call of the station men. At twelv,
years old he had picked pp no small
amount of information, especially OF
railroad topics. He knew every locomo
tive on the road, understood the intri
cacies of sidetracks and switches
and ccasld tell the precise mo
nAnt when any particular train might b