The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-10-04


MAZE turned to the master mechanic from
where Delaroo lay. "Neighbor, you might
as we'll know it now as any time. Don't
you say so, Martie? Martie, what do you
say?' Martie burst into tears, but through
them Neighbor caught the engineers
broken confession. "Neighbor-rm color
blind. The master mechanic sat stunned.
True Gods word. You might as well
know it now. There's the man that stood
between and the loss of my job. It's
been coming on me for two years. He
knew it. that's why he stayed in my cab.
He stayed because 1 was color blind. He
knowed I'd git ketched the minute a new
fireman come in, Neighbor. He watched
the signals-Delaroo. I'm color blind. God
help me-" Martie hushed her crying; the
three sat in the darkness.
ut wouldn't worry much If 1T
wasn't FIR the family, Neighbor. The wom-
an-and the boys. I ain'ts much a-savin';
you know that. If you can gr me a job
1 can get bread an butter out of, give it
to me. 1 can't pull a train; my eyes went
out with this man here. / wish to God it
was me, and him standing over. man
| that's color blind, and don't know a thing
On Gods. earth but runnin' an engine, is
worse'n dead man."
| Neighbor went home thinking.
| They buried Delaroo. But even then
they were not through with him. Delaroo
mad insurance in every order in the Bend,
which means almost every earth.
| There was end to his benefit certificates.
and no known beneficiaries. But when they
overhauled his trunk they found every last
certificate filed away up to the last paid
4 mt nd ha 10 CT artd
Then came a shock. People found out there
was beneficiary. While the fraters were
busy making their passes Delaroo had
quietly been directing the right honorable
recording secretaries to make the benefits
run to Neighbor, and every dollar of his
insurance ran. Nobody was more thunder
struck at the discovery than the master
| mechanic himself.
| Yet Delaroo meant something by 1t. After
Neighbor had studied over 1t nights the
best of a month; after Maze Sampson had
tried to take the color test and failed, as
| he persstently said he would; after he had
| gone to tinkering respectfully. and by de-
grees went down the hill to wiping at
s1.4O a day with time and a half for over
time-Neighbor bethought himself all of a
| sudden one day of, paper Delaroo had
|
| He had put it away in the storekeeper's
safe with his own papers and the drawings
of his extension front end patent-and safe
| ly forgotten all about 1t. 1t was the day
they had to go into the county court about
the will that was not. when he recollected
| Delaroo's paper and pulled it out Of its
envelope. There was only half sheet of
paper inside, with this writing from Della
| roo to Neighbour:
"R. B. A-What is coming to me on in
| surance give to Marty Sampson, wife of
Maize. Give my trunk to p. McGraw.
| Rispk., p. DE LA ROUX."
| When the master mechanic read that be-
fore the probate Judge Maze Sampson took
| a-trembling. Martie hid her face in her
shawl, crying again. May be glimmer of
| what it meant came for the first time in
her life over her. May be she remembered
Delaroo as he used to sit with them under
the kerosene lamp while MAZE untiringly
| pounded the money question into him
! smoking as he listened, and Martie mended
on never-ending trousers. Looking from
Maze Sampson, heated with monologue, to
his wife, patiently stitching. No comments;
just looking as Pierre Delaroux could look.
Strange, Neighbor thought 1t, and yet
may be, not so strange. 1t was all there
I'm the paper-the torn, worn little book
of Delaroo's life She was the only woman
on earth that had ever done him a kind
ness.
Nobody at Medicine Bend quite under
stood it. but nobody at Medicine Bend quite
suspected that under all the barrenness up
at Maze Simpsons an ambition could have
survived; yet one had. Martie had an
ambition. Way down under her faded eyes
and her faded dress there was an ambition.
and for the least promising subjects in the
Rocky mountains-the brickbats. Under the
unending mending and the poverty and the
| toll, Martie, who never put her nose out of
doors, who never attended a church social,
never ventured even to free public school
show-had an ambition for the boys. She
wanted the two biggest to go to the State
| University; wanted them to go and get an
education. And they went; and Maze
Sampson says them boys, airy one, has for
gotten more about the money question than
he ever knew 1t looks as If after all the
| brickbats come out; a bit Of money in
Martie's hands goes so far.
There are a few soldiers buried at the
Bend. Decoration day there is an at
tempt at turnout little speeding and
little marching. thin, struggle column
of the same warped, bent old fellows In the
same faded old blue. Up the hill they go
and around to the cemetery to decorate
When they turn at Maize SIMPSONS place
there's a gate there now-Martie and
more less of the boys. and Maize, kind
of join in along and go over with them
carrying basket or so Of flowers and a
| bucket of water.
The boys soon stray over to where the
crowd is, around the graves Of the heroes
But Martie gets down by grave some
what apart and prods the drifting gravel
all up loose with old case-knife. You
would think she might be kneading bread
there. the way she sways under her sun
bonnet and gloves-for her little boiled
hands are in gloves now.
Il don't know how much good it does
Delaroo spilxing up his grave once year."
| Neighbor always winds up ut may not do
him a blamed bit Of good, don't say it
| does. But can see them. / see them from
the roundhouse; it does me good. Hm?"
"Maje?" he will add. why, I've got him
over there at the house, wiping I'm
going to put him running the stationary if
old John Boxer ever dies. When will he
die? Blamed if / know. John is a pretty
good man yet. 1 can't kill him, can L?
| Well, then, what's matter with your
NO. Maize don't talk as much as he used