The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-07-26
AS THE DISPATCHER SAW IT.

York, it will give you the date; may
be call to your mind the storm.
had the River Division then, and we
got through the whole winter with.
out single tie-up of consequence
until March.
The morning was still as June.
When the sky went heavy at noon,
it looked more like a spring shower
than snow-storm only, over at the
government building 1 noticed the
black flag splashed with red center
flying. l hadn't seen it before for
years, and ordered plows on every
thing out after two o'clock.
Even then there was no wicked
ness abroad; it was coming fairly
heavy in big fakes. but lying nl1iet
as apple-blossomS. Towards four
O'Clock I left the Office for the round
house, and got just about halfway
across the yard when the wind veer-
ed like scared semaphore. I had
left the depot in a snow-storm I
reached the roundhouse in a blizzard.
There was no time.to wait to get
back to the keys. 1 just telephoned
orders back from the house, and the
boys burnt the wires, east and west,
with warnings. When the wind went
into the north that day at four O. clock,
it was murder pure and simple, with
the snow sweeping the fiat like a
shroud and the thermometer water
ogged at zero.
All night it blew, with never min
ute's let-up. By ten o'clock half our
wires were down, trains were failing
all over the division, and before mid
night every plow on the line was
bucking snow-and the snow was
coming harder. We had given up
all idea of moving freight, and were
centering everything on the passen-
ger trains, when message came from
Beverly that the fast mail was off
track in the cut below the hill, and
ordered out both the rotaries and the
wrecking gang for the rundown.
1t was fearful night to make up
a train IN hurry-as much as man S
life was worth to work even slow in
the yard night like that. But what
limit to set to switchman's courage
l never have known, because I've
never known one to balk at a yard
masters order.
I went to work clearing the line,
and forgot all about everything out
side the train sheet till a car-tink
came running in with word that a
man was hurt in the yard.
Some men get used to it; I never
do. As much as I have seen of rail-
road life, the word that mans hurt
always hit me in the same place.
Slipping into an ulster, 1 pulled a
storm-cap over my ears and hurried
down stairs buttoning my coat. The
arc-lights, blinded IN the storm,
swung wild across the big yard, and
the wind sung with a scream through
the telegraph wires. Stumbling
ahead, the big car-tink led me facing
the storm to where, between the red
and the green lamps, a dozen men
lowered close to the gangway of a
switch engine. The man hurt lay
under the forward truck of the ten
der.
They had just got the wrecking
train made up, and this man, running
forward after setting switch, had
tipped the tender of the backing en-
gine and slipped from the footboard.
When l bent over him, I saw he was
against it. He knew it, too, for the
minute they shut off and got to him
he kept perfectly still, only asking
for priest.
1 tried every way could think OF
to get him free from the wheels. Two
of us crawled under the tender to try
to figure it out. But he lay so JAM
med between the front wheel and the
hind one, and tender trucks are so
small and the wheels so close together
that, to save our lives, we could
neither pull ahead nor back the en-
CINE without further multilating him.
As 1 talked to him 1 took his hand
and tried to explain that we should
have to jack the truck up to free him.
He heard, but his eyes, glittering
with shock like the eyes of wound
ed animal, wandered uneasily while
] spoke; when 1 had done, he closed
them to :, pple with the pain. Pres
emily hand touched my shoulder ;
the priest had come, and, thIowing
open his coat, knelt beside us. He
was a spare old man-none too good
a subject himself, 1 thought, for much
exposure like that-but he didn't
seem to mind. With both hands in
the snow he got on his knees and put
his head down behind the wheel close
to the mans face. What they said
to each other lasted only moment,
and all the while the boys were key
ing at jacks like madmen to ease the
wheel that had crushed the switch
mans thigh. When they got the
truck partly free, they lifted the in
jured man little back where we
could all see his face. They were
ready to do more, but the priest,
wiping the water and snow from the
failing mans lips and forehead, put
up his fingers to check them.
The wind, howled through the
strings of freight-cars all about us,
sucked the guarded lantern flames up
into blue and green fickers in the
globes; they lighted the priests face
as he took off his hat and laid it be-
side him, and lighted the switchman' S
eyes looking steadily up from the
rail. The snow, curling and eddying
across the little blaze of the lamps,
whitened everything alike, tender
and wheel and rail, the jackscrews,
the bars, and the shoulders and caps
of the men. The priest bent forward
again and touched the lips and the
forehead of the switchman with his
thumb. Then, Strengthening on his
| 1z%aec he 11o,1cad q moment hic evee