THE STORY OF THE RETIRED CAR-CONDUCTOR
I was born and brought up in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and I had a close call to escape bein’ named Wrestling Brewster, one of my mother’s family names. My father voted for just plain Eli Cook, howsomever, and dad most always generally won. It might have made considerable difference to me, maybe, for as it was, whether from my name or nature, I rather took after my father, who was no mortal good. Father was what Old Colony folks call “clever,” just a shif’less ne’er-do-well, handy enough when he got to work, but a sort of a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none. Never went to church, fished on Sundays, smoked like a chimney and chewed like a cow, easy to get on with and hard to drive—no more backbone than a clam, my mother used to say. And what he was, I am, with just enough Brewster in me to make me repent, but not enough to hinder me from going astray.
I come out here to Californy in ’49, and hoofed it most all the way. I calculated to get rich without workin’, but I reckoned without my host. I looked for somethin’ easy till I got as thin as a yaller dog,and for twenty year I held on that way by my eyelids, pickin’ up odd jobs and loafin’ and whittlin’ sticks in between times. Then I got a place as driver on the Folsom Street hoss-car line, and that’s where I made my fortune by hook or crook, till I retired.
If I’d had a drop more Brewster blood I wouldn’t have did what I did, but I kind of fell into the way of piecin’ out my salary the way every one else did who worked for the company, and my conscience didn’t give me no trouble for a considerable spell. It was only stealin’ from a corporation, anyway, and I reckoned they could afford it, with the scrimpin’ pay they give us.
In them days the company ran them little double-ender cars with ten-foot bodies. When I got to the end of the route and drove my team round and hitched up at t’other end, I had to take out the old Slawson fare-box and set it up in front, for they didn’t have no conductors in early days. I s’pose I kind of hated to carry such a load of money, bein’ more or less of a shirk, and I got into the way of turning her upside down and shakin’ out a few nickels every time. They come out easy, I’ll say that for ’em, and it wa’n’t no trick at all to clean upa dollar or so every day, and twice as much on Sundays.
Well, so long as all the boys was a-doin’ the same thing, the loss wa’n’t noticed, but somehow or other the company got a few honest men on the line, and they turned in so much more money than we did every night that the old man smelled a mouse. He put in the new Willis patent fare-box that was durned hard to beat. It had a little three-cornered wheel inside that acted like a valve, and nothin’ that went in would come out, either by turnin’ the box upside down, or by usin’ the wire pokers we experimented with. They wa’n’t nothin’ for it but to git keys, and so keys we got. It looked a heap more like stealin’ than it did before, but it was rather easier. Some of the boys was caught at it, but as luck would have it, nobody never suspected me, and I took out my little old percentage regular as a faro dealer.
I salted down my money in the Hibernia Bank, and I called it my sinkin’ fund, which it was for sure sinkin’ my soul down deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit. I’m a-goin’ to make a clean breast of it, howsomever, and I own up I was about as bad as the rest of ’em, and four times as sharp at the game.
After a while the system was improved, and the company got new rollin’ stock with all two-horse cars. I was a conductor then, and I ran on No. 27 till I was off the road. The Gardner punch was my first experience in knockin’ down fares right in the face and eyes of everybody, and I had figgered a way to “hold out” long before I had the nerve to try it. But Lord! it was as easy as fallin’ off a log, when you knew how. You see, we sold a five-coupon ticket for a quarter, and we had to slice off a section for every fare, with a candle-snuffer arrangement, the check droppin’ into a little box on the under jaw of the nippers. All we had to do was to “build up” on ’em. You held back a lot of clipped tickets, with two or three or four coupons left, as the case might be, and you kept ’em underneath the bunch of regular tickets for sale. Say a man handed you a whole ticket for two fares. You made a bluff at cuttin’ it, and handed him back a three-coupon ticket from underneath your rubber band. You kept his whole one for yourself, and sold it to the next passenger for two bits.
Well, Jim Williams was caught red-handed, and Gardner’s system went to Jericho. Next they sprung the regular bell-punch on us, the kind you“punch in the presence of the passenjaire.” We had no trouble with that. They was a dummy palm-bell manufactured almost simultaneous, and we’d ring up fares without punchin’ at all. The breastplate registers was worked similar, with a bell inside your vest connected with a button. It was as easy as pie, providin’ nobody watched the numbers on the indicator while you was ringin’ up.
I left the road before they adopted the stationary registers or clock machines. I admit they’re ingenious, but still I ain’t got no doubt that, given a good big crowd and no spotters, I could manage to make my expenses with the rest of the boys.
But I won’t go round Robin Hood’s barn to spin out the story. The result was that after about fifteen years of patient, unremittin’ industry, I had somethin’ like $12,000 in the bank, and what was left of my New England conscience shootin’ through me like rheumatism. It didn’t bother me so much at first, but when once Brewster blood begins to boil it don’t slow up in a hurry. Eli Cook didn’t seem to care a continental, but they was a whole lot of Pilgrim Fathers behind me that was bound to testify sooner or later.
I tried to settle down and get into some quietbusiness, where I wouldn’t have no more trickery to do than maybe put a little terra alba in the sugar and peanuts in the coffee. But after lookin’ round I hankered after makin’ money easier, and so I bought minin’ stocks and hung on, assessment after assessment, like grim Death, till, by Jimminy! one day I’ll be durned if I didn’t calculate I had $30,000 to the good, if I sold. I pulled out the day before the slump. I don’t know why Providence favored my fortune, which was so wickedly come by, and I don’t know why, after doin’ so well, I didn’t have spunk enough to pay back the company, but, anyhow, I wa’n’t yet waked up to feel full consciousness of sin, and I shut my ears to the callin’ to repentance.
Now, all this time, bein’ of a South Shore family of seafaring men mostly, I had a hankerin’ after the water. So, when the first lots was cut up, out to the Beach, I bought a parcel of land on the shore. I used to go out there all the time to sit on my own sand, and recollect how it used to feel to get a good dry heat on my bare legs when I was a boy down to Duxbury. If they had only been clams there, I’d have been as happy as a pollywog in a hogshead of rain water.
One day I was walkin’ out there, and as I passed the company’s stables I see a sign out, “Cars for Sale, Cheap,” and I went in to see ’em. I speered round the yard till what did I see but old 27, my car, settin’ there without wheels, lookin’ as shabby as Job’s cat! I asked the foreman how much they wanted for it, and I got it for ten dollars. I hired a dray and moved the thing out to the Beach that very afternoon. I set it up on two sills on my lot, calculatin’ I could use it for a cabin to hang out in, over Sunday, and it was as steady as Plymouth Rock, and made as cute a little room as you’d want to see. Every time I went I tinkered round and fixed her up more, till I had a good bunk at one end, lockers under the seats, and a trig little cellar beneath, where I kept canned stuff.
’Twa’n’t long before I regularly moved out there and stayed for good. Just from force of habit, I expect, at first, I rung two bells every time I got on, and one bell before I got off, and I always keep it up, just as if the old car was really on the rails. I never went in and set down but I felt as if No. 27 was poundin’ along toward Woodward’s Gardens, with the hosses on a jog trot. Sometimes when the rain was drivin’ down and the wind blowin’ like allpossessed, and it was pitch dark outside, with the surf rollin’, I’d put down my pipe and go out on the platform, and set the brake up just as tight as I could. I don’t know why, but it kind of give me a sense of security.
It wa’n’t long before I begun to feel a positive affection for that old car, what with the years I’d spent on it, and livin’ ’way out there to the Beach alone with nothin’ to think about but the way I’d robbed the company. No. 27 was more like a pet dog than a house. You can talk about ships bein’ like women, and havin’ queer ways and moods, but you go to work and take an old car, and it’s more like folks than a second cousin; and it’s got sense and temper, I’m persuaded of that.
But it wa’n’t long before No. 27 begun to act queer. I noticed it a considerable spell before I realized just what was wrong. It wouldn’t stay still a minute. It groaned and sighed like a sinner on the anxious seat. I couldn’t ease it any way I tried. It worked off the sills, and just wallowed in the sand. The sand drifts like snow at the Beach, and often I used to have to dig myself out the door after a sou’wester. I didn’t mind bein’ alone so much, for I had a book of my Uncle Joshua Cook’s sermonsto read, but the way that old car talked to itself got on my nerves. The windows rattled, and sometimes a shutter would fall with a bang, sudden, and I’d jump half out of my skin. Then, too, that stealin’ was preyin’ on my mind, and I couldn’t help harpin’ on it. They was a Slawson fare-box still on the front of the car, and finally I got to goin’ in t’other way to avoid it. Then the green light got to watchin’ me, and I begun to drink, for I felt the full qualms of the unrighteous, and the car itself seemed to know it was defiled by my sin.
Finally, one night, I come home from the Cliff House, where I’d been warmin’ up my courage, and when I got back to No. 27 I see the green lantern I’d left lit was a burnin’ low, almost out. I got up on the platform and tried to ring two bells as usual, but the cord broke in my hands. I tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. That blamed car just naturally refused to recognize me, and wouldn’t let me in. Then I sat down in the sand and cried like a fool, and wondered what was wrong.
It bust on me like a light from the sky, and the callin’ of a sinner to repentance, sayin’, “Come now, this is the appointed time.” All I’d done inthe old days rose up in front of me, and right there I experienced a change of heart and was convicted of sin. It come sudden, and I acted sudden. I didn’t stop to think nor reason, nor to set my mortal mind against the judgment of Heaven and that car, but I rose up confident of grace, and went round to the front platform where the fare-box was, and dropped in a nickel and tried the bell. The cord wa’n’t broke on this side, and she rung all right. The light flared up again, and the door opened as easy as a snuff-box. I was saved.
From that time on I never got aboard without payin’ my fare, and when the box was full I’d turn it over to the treasurer of the company. Of course I might have drawn out my money in the bank and paid it all up at once, but it seemed to me that this means was shown me, so that I would be reminded of my wickedness every day and keep in the road of repentance. But even then, sometimes I backslid and fell from grace when I emptied out the box. Some of the money would stick to my fingers, and it seemed as if I couldn’t stop stealin’ from the company. But afterward I’d repent and put in a quarter or even a halfdollar for my fare to make up, and in that way I went on tryin’ to lead a better life, and keep in the straight and narrer road of salvation.
Well, I thought then that No. 27 would settle down and give me some peace of mind, but it wa’n’t long before that car begun to get uneasy again. I didn’t know what in creation to make of it, and it beat all the way it took on. I drew out $5,000 of good securities that was payin’ nine per cent. and sent it all in gold coin packed in a barrel of barley to the company, but that didn’t do no good at all. The car was plum crazy, and nothin’ seemed to satisfy the critter.
No. 27 settled and sobbed and sighed like a fellow that’s been jilted by a flirt. They wa’n’t no doin’ nothin’ with it. I puttered over it and tightened all the nuts, but it snivelled and whined like a sick pup every time the wind blew. When the fog come in, the drops of water stood on the window panes like tears, and every gale made the body tremble like a girl bein’ vaccinated. The old car must be sick, I thought, and I greased all the slides and hinges with cod-liver oil. The thing only wheezed worse than ever. I thought likely it might be just fleas, for the sand is full of ’em, andI sponged the cushions with benzine. It wa’n’t no more use than nothin’ at all!
Perhaps I ain’t got no call to boast, but I flatter myself I found out what was lackin’ as soon as most would have done. Howsomever, I spent a good deal of time walkin’ round the Beach thinkin’ it over. They’s quite a colony of us out there now; seemed like my car drew out a lot of others, until they’s more than a baker’s dozen of ’em scattered around, built up and managed in different ways, accordin’ to the ideas of their owners. Some h’ist ’em up and build a house underneath, some put two alongside and rip out the walls, some put ’em end to end, some make chambers of ’em and some settin’-rooms. They call the colony Carville-by-the-Sea, and it looks for all the world like some new-fangled sort of Chinatown.
I was walkin’ round one day, inspectin’ the new additions to the place, when I see a car I thought I recognised. I went up, and if it wa’n’t a Fifth Street body, and as far as I could see, it must have been the very one old 27 used to transfer with in the old days! It was numbered 18, and I remembered how she used to wait for us on the corner when we was late. Then I understoodwhat was the matter with my car. It was just naturally pinin’ away for its old mate.
Well, sir, I went to the owner and bought No. 18 at his own price. I’d have paid twenty-five dollars if he’d asked it. I moved her onto my lot, put a foundation under her, sideways to 27, like an ell to a farm-house. And it seemed to me I noticed old 27 give a grunt and settle down in peace and contentment. I was a good guesser. I hitched ’em together with a little stoop, covered over so as to make the two practically one, and then I give the whole thing a fresh coat of white paint, and cleaned up the windows and swept out till it was all spick and span. And I never had no trouble with No. 27 after that, nor with my own conscience neither, for now the money’s all paid back with interest.
Well, sir, maybe you won’t believe it, and maybe you will, but about a year after the two was hitched together a funny thing happened. One day morning I went outdoors, and see something on the sand beside No. 18. My eyes stuck out like a fifer’s thumb when I recognised what it was. It was a plum new red wheelbarrow!