Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1907-01-23

er. A quiet, somber little woman in
a shawl and a bonnet of no special
shape or size-just shawl and bon
net, that's all. Anyhow, the Duffy
boys mother was that way, and there's
lot more like her l don't know what
gets the fathers. Maybe very often
the scrap. But there's almost always
somewhere a mother. So after Martin
began to make a record, to help his
mother and his brother both, he spoke
for Bob. Callahan didn't hesitate or
jolly him, as he used to do with good
many. He thought the company could
not have too many of the Duffy kind.
So he said, "Yes, sure" And Bob
Duffy was put at work-same thing ex-
actly, carrying messages, reading hair
destroyers and blowing his salary on
pie.
But pie acts queer. Sometimes it
makes mans head solid and his heart
big, and again it makes mans head
big and his heart solid. I'm not say
ing anything more now, except that
pie certainly acts different.
Bob Duffy was taller than Martin
and, l would repeat, handsomer, but
can't, because Martin had absolutely
no basis of beauty to start with. He
was parchmentlike and palish from
sitting night after night and night after
night over a sounder. Never a sick day
In his life but always over the sounder
until, sleeping or waking, resting or
working, the current purred and pur-
red through his great little head like a
familiarity-taking old tomcat. He could
guess more off a wire than most men
could catch after the whole thing had
tumbled in.
So up and up ladder he went. Mes
senger, operator-up to assistant dis
patcher, up to a regular trick dispatch
err up to the orders and signing the
81. NJ Co." the letters that stood for
our superintendent name and honor;
up to the trains and their movements,
up to the lives, then chief, with the
honor of the division all clutched in
Martin Duffy's three quick right fin
gers on the key and his three quick
left fingers on the pen at the same in
stant scratching orders across the clip
Talk about ambidexterity! Martin
didn't know what it would be like to
use one hand at a time. If Martin
Duffy said right, trains went right; il
he said wrong, trains went wrong. But
Martin never said the wrong; he said
only the right. Giddings knows; he
copied for him long enough. Giddings
and plenty 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 q good time. He did more of
the social act, and that pleased his
mother, who on account of her bonnet
and-shawl complexion didn't achieve
much that way. Martin, too, was
proud of his brother, and as soon as
Bob could handle a wire-which was
very soon, for he learned things in no
time-Martin got Callahan to put him
up at Grant as operator. Bob got the
place because he was Martins brother;
nothing else. He held it about two
months; then he resigned and went to
San Francisco. He was restless fellow.
1t was Bob up and Bob down. For a
year he wandered around out there,
telegraphing; then he bobbed up again
in Medicine Bend out of job He
wanted to go to work, and-well, Cal
lahan = Martins brother, you know -
sent him up to Montair as night oper-
ator Three months he worked steady
as a clock; then one night the dispatch
ers at the Bend couldn't get Montair
for two hours. 1t laid out No. g and
special with the general manager and
made no end of row.
Martin said right off he ought to go,
but there was the little mother up
home, silent, expect, but pleading
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 superintendent 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 Templars'
conclave at San Francisco.
We worked the whole spring getting
luluSS ulJ alOllf5 iiliG liOlh W
the Sierras for that conclave. Engines
were overhauled, rolling stock touched
up, roadbed put in shape, everything
shaken from end to end. Not only were
the passenger records to be smashed,
but beyond that lot of our big gen.
eral officers were way up 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 in
structlons was to nickel plate every
thing, from the catalpas to the target
rods. For three months before the con-
clave date we were busy getting ready
for it, and when the big day drew near
on which we were to undertake the
moving and feeding of 5000 people one
way on one track through the noun
tains the cartinks smoked crosscut and
the Russian section men began to oil