The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-10-11


But Martin never said the wrong: he said
only the right. Giddings knows; he copied
for him long enough. Giddings and plenty
of more of them can tell all about Martin
Duffy
Bob didn't rise in the service quite so
fast as Martin. He was rather for having
a good time. He did more OF the social act,
and that pleased his mother who, on ac-
count of her bonnet-and-shawl complexion,
didn't achieve much that way Martin. too,
was proud of his brother, and soon as
Bob could handle a wire, which was very
soon for he learned things in no time) Mar
TIN got Callahan to put him up at Grant
as operator. Bob got the place because
he was Martins brother, nothing else. He
held 1t about two months. then he resigned
and went to San Francisco. He was a rest
less fellow; ii was Bob up and Bob down.
For year he wandered around out there,
teegraphing, then he bobbed up again in
Medicine Bend out of job. He wanted
to go to work. and-well, Callahau-Mar-
tins brother, you know-sent him up to
Montair as night operator. Three months
he worked steady as clock. Then
night the dispatcher at the Bend couldn't
get Montair for two hours. 1t laid out
No. and a special with the general mana
ger and made no end of a row.
Martin said right off he ought TO go. But
there was the little mother up home, silent,
| expect, but pleading-like. 1t was left
largely to Martin, for the young fellow
was already chief and that was the
trouble-he hated to bear down too hard;
so he compromised by asking his superin-
tendent not to fire Bob, but to set him
back. They sent him up as night man to
Rat River. the meanest place on the whole
system. That was the summer of the
Templer's conclave at San Francisco.
We worked the whole spring getting
things up along the line from Omaha
to the Sierras, for that conclave. Engines
were ovcrhauled, rolling stock touched up,
roadbed put in shape, everything shaken
from end TO end. Not only were the pas
senger records to be smashed, but beyond
that lot of our big general officers were
wayup Masons and meant that our line
should get not merely the cream of the
business, but the cream of the advertising
out of the thing. The general tenor of the
instructions was to nickel-plate everything,
from the catalpas TO the target rods For
three months before the conclave date we
were busy getting ready for it. and when
the big day drew near which we were to
undertake the moving and feeding of six
thousand people one way on the track
through the mountains, the cartinks
smoked cross-cut and the Russian section
men began to oil their hair.
Callahan was superintendent under
Bucks, then general manager, and Martin
Duffy chief dispatcher, Neighbor superin-
tendent of motive power and Doubleday
division master mechanic and with every
thing buttoned up on the West End We
went that Sunday morning on the firing line
to take the first of the Templer specials
Medicine Bend had the alkali pretty we'll
washed out of its eyes, and never before
in its history had it appeared really gay.
The old Wickiup was decorated till it
looked like buck rugged for ghost dance
Right after daybreak the trains began roll
ing in on Harold Davis's trick. Duffy had
annulled all local freghts and all through
odds and evens. all stock tramps east and
all west-bound empties-everything that
could be had been suspended for that Sun
times more trains than before rolled
through Medicine Bend in twenty-four
hours.
tains. Even the Indians and the squaw
men turned out to see the fun. There was
a crowd at the depot by o'clock, when
the first train rolled up the lower gorge
with ST. Johns Commandery, No. 8, from
Buffalo, and the Pullmans were gay with
| bunting. The Medicine Bend crowd gave
them Indian yell, and in two minutes
the Knights with their scalps I'm their
| hands as a. token of surrender. were tum-
bling out of their sleepers into the crisp
dawn. They were just like schoolboys, and
when Shorty Lovelace-the local curiosity
who had both feet and both hands frozen
off the night he got drunk with Matt Cas-
sidy at Goose River Junction-struck up
OH his mouth-organ Put Me Off at Buff
falo. they dropped seven dollars, odd.
and three baggage checks into his hat
while the crews were changing engines.
1t appeared to affect them uncommon. TO
1 see a fellow without any hands or feet
| play the mouth-organ and before sun
! down Shortly made the killing Of his life.
| With what he raked I'm that day he kept
| the city marshal guessing for three months
which was also pretty good for man
| without any hands or feet.
! All day il was that way: train after train
! and ovation after ovation. The day was
| cool as a ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS bright
| as q baby's face all through the noun
| tains, and the Templars went up into the
! high passes with all the swing and noise
we could raise. Harold Davis took it all
morning steady from a. m. at the dis
| patcher's key. He used up long be-
| fore noon; but he stayed, and just at Il
| o'clock while a big Templar train from
Baltimore was loading its commandery in
front OF the wickiup after an early dinner,
| and big Templar band played a tingling
| two-step Martin Duffy stuck his dry,
| parchment face into the platform crowd,
| elbowed his way unnoticed through it,
| climbed the Wickiup stairs, walked into
the dispatcher's room. and, throwing off
his hat and coat. leaned over Harold
| Davis's shoulder and took transfer.
Young Giddings had been sitting there in
| a perspiration half an hour then; he copied
| for Martin Duffy that day. At noon they
| figured to get the last Templar over the
| Eagle Pass with the set of the sun. When
| Duffy took the key he never looked his
| force cleaner. only he was tired; Giddngs
/ could see that The regular man had been
| sick A week and Martin had been filling in.