The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-05-20
THE S~TORY7EZLER
THE ABsENT-M1NDED OPERATOR.

WHEN James Maloney went to work, r~ustling freight
w on the c., P, 9. & R. railroad, he was Immediately
luxuriant growth of bushy red hair. Altho an excellent
student he never had succeeded in learning the multiple
cation tables and always carried an arithmetic containing
them. You will wonder how a man with such a poor mem
oy could hold his place over night on a railroad, but his
chief %laughingly said he could not do without Jimmy.
For" he said, "if we should happen to have a
washout or a wreck and didn' t have a signal fag-why,
Jimmy red head would stop a thunderbolt. All Jimmy
would have to do would be to remove his hat and he
would hold everything on the line" =
But that awful habit of forgetfulness was ALWAYS get
ting him into trouble. He did not know what was wrong
when ne was hungry and only upon consulting his rule
book would he realize it was dinner time. He paid the
night man 81 a month to tell him when it was time to
stop work in the evening. His great ambition was to be-
come an operator and he even dared, after an exception
some day he might sign his name, "James Maloney, dis
Patcher." The operator at Henning, the place where
Jimmy worked, was a good-natured sort Of a fellow, and
he fixed up an independent key and sounder for him and
armed with a Morse alphabet "Red0 set to work. He
learned rapidly, in spite of his habit of looking at the
rules on telegraphy every time he sat down at the table
TO see II all OF his instrument was there.
Things went on smoothly for a long while and s'Red'
Kept improving under the operators instruction.. He had,
because of his habit Of reading the rules, attained the
name Of "Ruly Red'' instead Of just plain "Red.''
When one day the night operator at Henning got his
time for giving a clap order,'' Ru]y Red was appointed
to take his place. His dream had in part become a re-
a1ty, and the town of Henning never held a more self
important operator than ''Ruly Red' proved to be.
With a time table and rule book he managed to run
talnS successfully, until one night ne went to work with
out his rule book. Looking out of the window an hour
later and seeing a train coming, he looked for his rule
book, but it was nowhere to be found. Ruly Red was
half frantic at the thought Of his inability to act. The
train pulled up to the station, stopped, and the conductor
came into the depot, gared fercely at Jim and said,
"Well, Kid, where's my orders?'
"What orders?' asked Jim, weakly.
"What orders!'' shouted the conductor. ''We1, Of
all idiots you are the biggest!" Being an operator him
self he went into the Office and wired the dispatcher for
orders. On getting them, he pulled his train out of Hen
ming and Jimmy took the opportunity to run to the hotel
for his rule book.
He got over the difficulty of forgetting his book by
tying a string to it and fastening to his buttonhole. One
night as he. sat at the key the dispatcher called Hen
ming. Jimmy answered and received the message, "W.
H. meaning "wreck.' He turned to the place in his
rule book where it said, "What to do in case of a wreck, -
Ruby Red seized a lantern and forgetting to light it,
rushed out onto the track only to feel himself hurled thru
the air. He had been struck by the midnight express.
When he came to his senses he crawled slowly and
painfully back to the depot.
Several hours later the superintendent special
stopped at Henning, and they found Jimmy in his chair,
insensible from loss of blood, but with his much-used rule
book in front of him, opened at the place, Chow to Re.
sign.'
lie recovered from his injuries and was given a posi-
ton in the dspatcher's Office. Strange to say there was
The shock Of his collision with the midnight express had
cured him of his forgetfulness, and now the wife OF
James Maloney, dispatcher, calls her husband ''Unruly
Red.' ~Percival F. Fountain,
Eighth Grade. Hawley, MINI.
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