The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1908-01-16

"You can't always tell" said Gig
Jim Callahan, as he climbed with
his waste and oil can among the
valves and cogs of the sleeping ma
chinery, "just what kind of stuff
there is in man until he's face t.
face with danger. Then you can find
out"
/ listened as the head wiper for
the Powell Street Railway clambered
among the giant wheels and long
. leather belts in the engine room of
the power house. Callahan has been
IL the service thirty years; and he
has wiped in the power house ever
since his car ran away down the
Long Hill ten years ago and he lost
his strong grip arm in the collision.
BY some whim of chance he has
faced death so often that the younger
men of the old cable road. are always
glad to listen to him.
So / asked Jim Callahan to con-
tinue. His one good hand polished
the suction valves and governors as
he talked, until they shone like
brilliant stars under the yellow fame
of the lantern.
you see," the old wiper went on,
was thinking of the Farrelleys.
There were two of them, and the
company knew them as old Tim Far
Kelley and young Tim Farrelley; and
finer pair of men never signed on
the rolls.
"Old Farrelley came out of the
East early in the eighties, and abouta
month after he applied was given a
car on the night run The first three
months after he was signed on, Far
Kelley and / relieved each other, and
sort of interest sprang up between
us, with car 265, our car, as a basis
for it.
II liked old Farrelley from the
very first run; he was always so
CHEEKY and cordial, and he had
sense of duty born in him. Before
leaving the car at night he would
always wipe and adjust the breaks;
and he was often tagged out, too.
Then, as the months passed, the
big strike came on, and we all went
out together. 1t was nearly four
months later before the bosses let
us so back to the barns The first
car to go out after the long fight was
old 265, with Tim Farrelley in the
gripman's box.
But it seemed as though some
fate was conspiring against him.
For few weeks later I was put on
the night run regularly, which was
just before the cable snapped and
my car slid back down the Long Hill,
crushing into 265, which Farrelley
had braked on the level intersection
Of Suffer street.
ut was hard of the unkind ate
that the car behind me should have
been Tim Farrelley's. When he res
turned to the barns from the hos
pital he was on crutches, and it
brought the tears to our eyes to see
him hobble down into the engine
room. AS for myself-this is what
the collision cost me-" The wiper
pointed to the stub of an arm.
The company stood by Tim Far
relley," continued Callahan, "and he
was made cable watcher.
Somehow I always thought they
might have been kinder to him. For
watching the cable is worse on the
nerves than gripping in a fog. Just
to sit night after night and watch
the long wire cable come rolling
in over the grooved wheel and SO
rolling out again below, your eyes
always fastened on it's writings,
looking for possible breaks-well,
Tim Farrelley could not stand it long.
so one day he told Monohan, the
superintendent, that he was all in
But the boy he said, can the
boy have my place watching till he
is old enough to break?'
"Monohan hesitated at first, then
he asked, Has he your old nerve?'
Every bit of it, declared the
old man.
"The men doubted it at first, when
old Farrelley brought him round to
the power house. And Monohan, I
dare say, wanted 20 take back his
promise, but he was afraid of break
ing old Farrelley all up, so the boy
was put to watching the cable
"Those were the days before the
torn strands Of the wire rope were
recorded on the patent instrument,
and the watcher mad to sit hour after
hour and watch the cable as it came
singing n over the wheel 1t was a
wearing task. A bad tear may not
come but once in five years; and
when we saw young Farrelley
perched on his stool, his keen blue
eyes studying the wire rope that flew
in and out of the low, black shaft
like crazy snake, we wondered what
he woull do when the test came.
uoInc follow 1;+ho