The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1899-12-13
LITTLE JOE BRYAN.

The older yardmen tell the story even
yet how young Michael BRYAN, as
straight and manly fellow as ever left
his green old native land for the better
chances of the new world this side of
the sea, came whisiling out of the
roundhouse that morning and stepped
hastily from before an incoming loco
motive, neither seeing nor hearing an
other rushing 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 horrible instant,
when he recognized his doom, or the
perpendicular leap into the air, from
which he fell back beneath the crunch
ing wheels.
In the excitement and CONSERVATION
of 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 her arms when the stout
bearers paused at her gate with their
mangled burden. She uttered terri
ble cry and fell fainting-the child's
tender back striking the sharp edge of
the doorstOne.
"What pity it was not killed out
rightr' said everybody but the poor
mother.
She herself always insisted that only
her constant watching over the little,
Pickering life kept her from going mad
in the first dreadful months of her be-
reavement.
"Crooked Joe is a rum 'un," said one
of his rough acquaintance, when Joe
had reached his twelfth year. "He
senses his troubles well enough, but he
don't let on TO nobody"
Mr.. Crump, the telegraph operator,
was Joe's constant friend. II 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 imaginative
mind seemed some strange creature
with . hidden life Of its own.
1t was growing toward dark one No
vember afternoon. Joe-neyer an un-
welcome visitor-sat eurled up in a cor
ner of Mr.. Crump's Office, waiting for
his mother to finish her work. He was
laboriously spelling out by the fading
light the words upon page Of an Illus
trated newspaper, quite oblivious OF the
ticking, like that of very jerky and
rheumatic clock, which sounded in the
room.
Mr.. Crump, too, had a paper before
him, but his ears were alive.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet, re-
peating aloud the message which that
moment flashed along the wire.
"Engine No. 10 running wild. Clear
track"
He rushed to the door, shouting the
news.
"Not a second TO spare! She'll be
down ia seven minutesv'
The word passed like lightning.
In moment the yard was in wild
confusion. Men few hithe- and thith-
er, yard engines steamed wildly away,
the switches closing behind them.
The main track was barely cleared
when ITO came in sight, swaying from
side to side, her wheels threatening to
leave the track at each revolution.
She passed the depot ike a meteor,
her bell Changing with every leap Of the
piston, the steam escaping from her
whistle with the continuous shrek Of 8
demon, and the occupants of the cab
wrapped from view in cloud of dense
smoke.
Some hundred rods beyond the depot
the track took sharp upward grade,
from which IL descended again to strike
the bridge across 3 narrow but deep and
rocky gorge.
Men looked after the flying locomo-
tive, aud then at each other with
blanched faces.
They're gone! A miracle can't save
'em,n said one, yoicing the wordless
terror of the rest "If they don't fly
the track on the up grade, they'll go
down as soon as they strike the trestle,"
he added.
The crowd began to run along the
track, some with a vain instinct of help
fulness, Others moved by that morbid
curiosity which seeks to be ''in at the
death"
But look! Midway the long rise the
speed of the runaway engine suddenly
siackens.
"what does it mean? She never
could have died out in that time.'
shouted an old yardman.
Excitement winged their feet When
the foremost runners reached the place
the smoking engine stood still in her
track, quivering ia every steel clad
nerve, her great wheels still whizzing
round and round amid fiight Of red
sparks from beneath.
"what did it? What stopped er?'
the crowd asked.
The engineer, staggering from the
eab with the pallid face OF the fireman
behind him. pointed without speaking