The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1915-02-09
BILL DAIDY's CHAPTER
BY ROBERT r. HOFFMAN.


Bill Daddy is one of those who be-
lieve there is good in the large oxer-
else of that nliviloge, although of late
years he he. aided caution to eandor.
In the old {. ssshc came in off his en-
CINE, loaded with The ususl sa1umula-
ton of griefs over the shortcomings
of the roundhouse, which are apt to
loom large in the long watches of the
night run.
He gradually grew the habit Of clos
ing his regular harangue to the round
house foreman with a sort OF perora-
tion which summed up the real or i'm
aginary derelictions of everybody con-
nected with the road, from call-boy to
president.
In an effort to break the flow of
Bills rough ~eloquence the roundhouse
foreman unwittingly set Bills feet
upon the path that led upward-down-
ward, Bill ~laughingly insists some
times.
BILL. why in thunder don't you
write a book?" said the iong-suffering
foreman, when Bill had become more
than usually aggressive in his none
too gentle impeachments. you are
sure wasting your talent on an en-
CINE"
Bill glared for a moment before he
was able to let down the pressure of
road management which he had men,
tally assumed, and then, as the recol-
lection of a purchase he had recently
made for his growing son flashed
across his mind, he gave way to a slow
grin and said:
Blamed If I don't believe that's a
good ides. Ballard. Maybe I'll just go
you a chapter. when my boy gets fit
with his machine"
So, Daddy, in his evenings at home,
took to rehearsing his daily griefs to
the boy. who laboriously hammered
them out of the typewriter into gro
tesques Of composition and the print
er's art.
Daddy dictated" and revised"
killed copy" and edited" although
he did not know 1t in those terms,
and after many days what he had
grown to call The Chapter" was fin
ished, decked out with border lines
that fairly exhausted the resources of
the boy and the eighty-odd characters
of the machine.
Bill gloated over it for a week of
nights. and then liked 1t so we'll that
he decided to have 1t all done over
again. in order that he might not only
supply Ballard, but also send carbon
copies Of it surreptitiously to the SUI
perintendent Of motive power, the di-
vision superintendent, and-holy of
NOTES.-The general manager.
The superintendent of motive pow
er duly received his copy. threw it in
the waste basket, and remarked easu-
ally, "Billi"
He liked Bill. but not Bills too free
excavations.
The division superintendent read his
copy and, laughing, pi~geonholed it for
future use In letting down the pres
sure of the superintendent of motive
power when next they should lock
horns over engine failures.
The general manager took up his
copy from it's personal cover and read
it from start to finish, as follows:
Chapter One.
If this don't fit your case, you get a
clearance card right here. The board
is out for others.
When you build an engine and want
the most results and don't care what
kind. fix yourself with a lot of dis
couraged craftsmen, and, for chief, get
a good wrangler that talks into his
whiskers and don't decide much.
Tell them fellows, at the start, that
you put them into that cheese-box Of
flee to stay, and they can't break out
onto the road to see an engine do busi-
ness, noways.
Don't pay In of them too much.
They are working on paper, and you
can easily fix the engine after we get
it.
Hire a lot of master mechanics that
know all about sawmills. There amt
o around here, but you can see
them running in the woods If you take
a ride with me. They will be ready to
lay up your new engine when it comes
out.
Fix up boiler steel specifications
that you know are o. K, and then let
the purchasing agent bluff you into
taking something better but cheaper;
he can prove it. That will sure give a
lift, once in a while, to some of US fell
lows that's a little slow about circulat-
ing in the scenery, and it will make
things brisk in the boiler shop. Them
fellows need work. They are too strong
to rest nights.
Use hammered engine frames. If /
was a track man I'd like to be able to
put my hand on a busted weld and
say, "Them's it." after the engine
jumped the track and got pulled out of
a borrow-pit. The dispatcher won't
care, if she don't block the track. 1t
makes work for the b~lacksmiths.
Fix your spring-rigging so, when it
breaks. the equalizer will hit, point
down, in the track. Gives the engine
a better start when she jumps. She
will go farther and everything had
ought to be made to go as far as it
can.
Truck-pedestal binder-bolts should
set low enough to rip up a frosty
plank crossing. 1t gives the engines a
good name as goers. One nuts
enough. Two stay on too well.
Put your d~riving-box wedge-bolts in
q safe deposit box behind the driving
wheels. Somebody might get at them
with a wrench, on the road. Wedge
bolts had ought to be smelled or
heard from when the journals screech;
not seen.
If anybody thinks he wants to slack
a w~edge-bolt, let that man shoot the
jamb-nuts off with a gun. That's what
guns is for, and they'd ought to be car
ried in the tool kit
The ~roundhouse gangs too good for
the job. New engines don't run hot
soon enough to suit yours truly Put
a crew of hoboes in there and tell
them they got to save oil and ram the
bar. They will do it. The babbit and
stuff you drop over the division makes
good ballast.
Wall in your ce~llar-bolts, so If a
fellow gets them out, digging babbitt
out of the cellar, on a fast run. he
can't get them in again inside of if
teen minutes apiece. The dispatcher
won't care-ask him-and the en-
gineer daresnt. It's all he can do to
talk his way out of a lay-off.
Don't you worry.about front-ends. II
the engine looks good to you, but don't
steam no more than a teakettle with
the bottom out, let the trainmaster