The Forrest City times., 1893-03-17
Mary famed with the fit rec anger of

motherhood.
 You shan't go another day" she de- clared. The rutfians l won't have my darlin' put upon by the likes of | them.''
 So Joe's schooling had come to an untimely end. Yet, meager as was his stock of book learning, the develop ment of his mind far outstripped the growth of his stunted and deformed l body. Every body liked the patient little fellow tugging manfully at his | mothers heavy water buckets and running willingly to every call of the | station men. At twelve years old he I had picked up no small amount of in- formation, especially on railroad top ics. He knew every locomotive on the road, understood the intricacies of the side tracks and switches, and could tell the precise moment when any par ticular train might be expected with the accuracy of time table. l Yet the very quickness and ardor of his nature deepened his sense of his in- l firmity. The glances cast upon him by stranger eyes, some pitiful. some cu- rious, others, alas. expressive only of duCc uSts iihC oo many arrows in his heart: not one missed its mark. How wistfully his 1 eyes followed boys of his own age straight, handsome, happy-who sprang i lightly up and down the steps of the coaches, or threaded their way along the crowded platforms. For one day of such a perfect, untrammeled life he would have bartered all the possible years before him. Yet he never put his yearnings into words even to his mother
 Crooked Joe's rum 'un." said one of his rough ac1uaintances. ''lie senses his trouble well enough, but he don't ] let on to nobody"
 Mir. Crump the telegraph operator, was Joe'ss constant friend. It was he who, at odd moments, had taught the boy to read and had initiated him into some of the mysteries of the clicking instrument, which to Joe's 1 imaginative mind seemed some strange creature with hidden life of its own. It was growing toward dark one No vember afternoon. .Ioe-never an un- i welcome visitor-sat curled in a corner of Mr. Crump's office waiting for his mother to finish her work. He was la l boriously spelling out by the faded l light the words upon a page of an illus trated newspaper, quite oblivious of the ticking, like that of a very jerky and rheumatic clock, which sounded in l the room.
 Mir. Crump too, had paper before , him, but his ears were alive. Suddenly he sprang to his feet, repeating aloud the message which that moment flashed | along the wire.
 Engine No. no running wild. Clear track"
 He rushed to the door. shouting the news.
 Not a second to spare. Shell be down in seven minutes"
 The words passed like lightning. In a moment the yard was in wild com motion. Men flew hither and thither yard engines steamed wildly away, the switches closing behind them. The main track was barely clear when no came in sight, swaying from side to side, her wheels threatening to leave the track at each revolution. She
  changing with every leap of her piston, the steam escaping from her whistle with the continuous shriek of demon, and the occupants of the cab wrapped from view in a cloud of smoke.
 Some hundred yards beyond the depot the track took a sharp upward grade, from which it descended again to strike the bridge across q narrow but deep and rocky gorge.
 Men looked after the flying locomo- tive and then at each other with blanched faces.
 They're gone. A miracle can't save 'em," said one, voicing the wordless terror of the rest If they don't fly the track on the upgrade they'll go down as soon as they strike the tres tle."
 The crowd began to run along the track, some with vain instinct of helpfulness, some moved by that mor- bid curiosity which seeks to be lin at the death.''
 But look. Midway the long rise the speed of the runaway engine sud denly slackens.
 What does it mean? She never could a died ont in that time." shouted an old yardman.
 Excitement winged their feet. When the foremost runners reached the place the smoking engine stood still on her track, qnivering in every steel-clad nerve, her great wheels still whizzing round and round amid flight of red sparks from beneath.
 What did it? Who stopped hero"
 The engineer starcerinU from the