The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-12-26
A LONG NEW YEARS TRIP.

Trainmen are a jolly lot of fellows
among themselves, and they are ac-
customed to tighten their labors with
the aid Of laughter evoked by comedy
or farce. Their daily life is sur
rounded on every hand by dangers
and it takes buoyant, steady heart
to endure the strain. When grim
tragedy steps forward they bear a bold
front and appear almost too uncon-
cerned. Seen beneath the surface,
however, all brains are indelibly i'm
pIessed with the many painful scenes
tley witness. A proof of this is the
frequency with which they tell and
reell the bloody tales of the past and
The extreme interest eviuced by each
cirle of hearers in the stories of sud-
del accident and death.
What makes these stories .parIicu-
lahy interesting to the trainmen is
the fact that they know the stage so
wdl. They are personally acquaint-
edwith all the scenes, drops, traps
and so forth, and they never can tell
but that at some supreme moment
they themselves may be the central
actors in a tragic finale on which the
curtain slowly falls.
Here is a New Years story yard
master once told me. He is an old
railroad man and has been between
all the stones of the mill without
being ground to powder.
< X X X X
When my brother was brakeman
on the local freight his conductor,
George Bailey, was one of the most
careful men on the road, although he
had been a rather harum- scarum fell
low until he fell in love with Maggie
Dexter. Maggie was one of the best
qyls that ever lived and she used her
Iuence over George to make him
! tod, sound, reliable man. He stop
I'd drinking, he became clean in his
Iklk, he obeyed his orders and the
BOOK of Rules to the letter-in fact
the foolish youngsters on the road
thought him too good to be success
fiji railroad man. His superiors judg-
d differently, luckily for him, and he
vas promoted rapidly until he was
made conductor of the local freight.
Maggie watched his rise with joy,
and did not attempt to conceal it.
But when he talked of love and of
happy married life she would stave
him off.
"I like you, George" she would
say. "I like you, and l don't mind
telling you so. But 1 don't like you
enough to marry you yet. I am
afraid of you. 1 am not sure that
you won't fall back into your old
ways if you have me fast. Keep up
your fight. Be good and prove your
self man with or without Maggie
Dexter"
George kept up his fight aud laid
by his dollars. His whole life seem
ed to be bound up in the girl and he
resolved to win her. He was not
afraid of any backsliding on his part.
What he did fear was that she would
marry Dave Harlan, handsome pas
senger engineer, with a great reputa-
tion as ladv-killer' Harlan drew
check each month twice as large as
Bailey's, and he had never been over
powered by bad habits. Maggie re-
spected him and was pleased with his
easy, confident manners and she could
not bring herself to turn up her pretty
nose at his large bank account. She
felt sure that as Mrs. Harlan she
would lead smooth life with no need
of worriment when her husband was
out of sight. She also knew that
Mrs. Bailey would always feel little
bit nervous if her liege lord had money
in his pocket and got caught in a
swirl of good fellows.
George and David, at first friends,
soon drifted apart. George believed
that Dave told tales to Maggie about
his former wildness, and some mean
fellow told Dave that George had said
he was hypocritical fraud. Hence
bad blood rose up between them, and
the two men did not speak when they
met. Maggie was not the kind of
girl to be pleased to see her admirers
at enmity, and she did what she could
to patch up peace. Her efforts were
unavailing, much to her distress, so
she was compelled to treat both of
them little coldly to show that she
was displeased with their conduct.
This only added fuel to the fire, and
trouble came of it.
One snowy day-it was New Years
Day, too-George had the bad luck
to leave switch open at Hampton
Station, and Dave, who was follow
ing him on passenger train, ran
through it. 1t was what we call a
trailing SWITCH and was not liable
to cause any damage. In this par
ticular occasion no one would have
been any the wiser if Dave had not
been moved by his evil spirit to re-
port it. He, however, saw a way to
get George into serious trouble, and,
although naturally manly fellow, he
could not resist the temptation to wire
to the superintendent from his next
stopping place that he had run through
an open switch at Hampton (which
had been left open by conductor
Bailey"