The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1892-12-03
STORY OF JOE.

A great railroad depot may not be the
best school for n boy, yet poor little Joe
Bryan had scarcely known any other,
He could not remember when the long
waiting rooms, with their tiled floors
and dreary rows Of stationary settecs
and crowds OF hurrying people, were
not quite as familiar to him and moro
homelike than his mothers small, bare
house, which he knew as little more
than a place for eating and sleeping.
At an age when an ordinary baby
might have been frightened into con-
vulsions by the shrek OF a locomotive,
Joe, securely fastened in his cab, would
stare for hours through the great win
dow, undisturbed by the incessant rush
and roar Of arriving
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 a pitt.
full creature, which eve death refused
to take.
The old yardmen tell the story even
yet-how young Michael Bryan, rs
straight and manly n fellow as ever left
his green, old, native island for the bet
ter chance of the new world this side oil
the sea, came whistling out OF theround-
house that morning and stepped hastily
from before an incoming locomotive,
neither seeing nor hearing another
rushing up the parallel track. His
mates cried out to him-too late! No
body who saw it would ever forget tho
look OF agony which distorted his
handsome face in that n horrible in
slant when he recognized his doom, or
tho perpendicular leap into the air,
from which he fell back under the
crunching wheels.
In the excitement and CONSERVATION
Of the time no messenger had been sent
in advance to prepare the young wife
for her trouble and she stood in the
doorway with her baby growing in her
arms when the stout bearers paused at
her gate with their mangled burden.
She uttered n terrible cry and fell faint
ing-the child's tender back striking
the sharp edge of the door stone.
"What q pity that it was not killed
outright" said everybody but the
mother. She herself always insisted
that only her constant watching over
tho little, Pickering life kept her from
going mad in the first dreadful months
OF her bereavement.
The officers OF the railway company
we're kind to poor Mary Bryan. They
paid the expenses of the burial, and
after little Joe had slowly mended, en-
ployed her about the depot to scrub the
floors and keep the glass and woodwork
bright and neat.
When Joe was seven years old his
mother sent him to school. He went
patiently, day after day, making no
| complaint, but she awoke suddenly one
night to find him sobbing on the pillow
beside her. Only by dint Of long coax.
ingwas she able to find out the aus OF
his grief. Some of the rougher boys
more thoughtless than cruel, let us
hope-had called him Humpy, and
asked him If he carried a bag Of meal
on his back.
Mary famed with the fierce anger Of
motherhood.
'You shan't go another day!" she dc
clared. "The %rulians! l won't have
my darlin' put upon by the likes o!
them!"
So Joe's schooling had come TO an un-
timely end. Yet, q as was his
stock OF book learning, the development
OF his mind far outstripped the growth
of his stunted and deiormed body.
Everybody liked the patient little fel-
low, tugCing manfully Mt his mothers
heavy water buckets and running will
ingly at every call Of the station men.
At twelve years old he had picked up
no small amount OF information, espec.
tally on railroad topics. He knew every
locomotive on the road, understood the
~lntricacies Of sldetracks and switches,
and could tell the precise moment when
any train might be expected with the
accuracy OF a timo table.
Yet tho very %quickness and ardor OF
his nature depended his sense OF his
infirmity. Tho glances cast upon him
by stranger eyes, some pitiful, some
curious, others, alas! expressive only oil
annoyance and disgust, ranked like SC
many arrows in his heart; not one
missed its mark. How wistfully his
eyes followed boys of his " age
straight, handsome, happy-who spranR
lightly up and down the steps Of the
coaches or trcaded their ways along the
crowded platforms. For one day oil
such perfect, untrammeled life he
would have bartred all the possible
years before him. Yet he put
his yearning into words, even to his
mother.
"Crooked Joe's u rum 'un," said one
Of his rough acquaintance. ale senses
his trouble we'll enough, but he don't
let on to nobody"
Mr.. Crump, the telegraph operator,
was Joe's constant friend. 1t was he
who, at odd moments, had taught tho
boy to read, and had initiated him into
some OF the mysteries OF the clicking
instrument, which to Joe's imaginative
mind seemed some strange creature
with 4 hidden life of its own
1t was growing toward dark n No.
yember afternoon. Joe-never IN I'm.
welcome visitor-sat curled in Il corner
Of Mr.. Crump's Office, waiting for his
mother to finish her work. He was la
boriously spelling out, by tho fading
light, the words upon tho page OF an il.
Illustrated newspaper, quito oblivious Of
tho ticking, like that OF n very ierky
and rheumatic clock, which sounded in
the room.
Mr.. Crump, too, had u paper before
him, but his ears were alive. Suddenly
ne spraug to his feet, repeating aloud
the message which that moment flashed
along the wire.
"'Engine No. no running wild. Clear