CHAPTER IX
TOMMY FLAGS THE WHITE MAIL
Atlast the long winter broke, spring came back, the grass grew green upon the graves of the old watchman and his son, school was out, and little Mary brought Tommy’s dinner, as she had done the summer before.
When seven o’clock came of a morning, Denis McGuire would limp home and Tommy would ride his mule down the track behind the White Mail.
It had been raining for nearly a week, the fields were flooded and the trains late.
Half of East St. Louis was under water, and the broad bottoms, seen from Collinsville, looked like a vast ocean. For twenty-four hours both East and West Silver Creek had been rising rapidly. An extra, taking water at the tank, told McGuire that the mail was an hour late at Effingham, and McGuire went home, leaving the bridge in Tommy’s care. Whilst he was walking home and the boy wasriding down (the mule went fearfully slow to work), the water was rising fast. As Tommy came near the bridge he noticed that the water, in places, was almost up to the ends of the ties. Below the track it was two feet lower, and the boy sat watching the boiling flood of black water that was sucking under the bridge. Occasionally great logs would strike against the wooden piling and shake the whole structure. Tommy was thoroughly alarmed—not for himself—for he believed himself capable of swimming the widest river that ran, but for the White Mail that would soon come over the ridge and down the short hill like falling down a well. Suddenly, a great elm tree that stood near the bank above the bridge toppled over into the stream, drifted crosswise against the bridge and lodged.
The roots and branches of the huge tree choked the channel, other trees and logs drifted against it, and a great wall of water began to rise rapidly above the track. Finding the outlet clogged, the river ran swiftly along the railway, east and west, until it came to the bluffs. It backed up far into the forestover the flat bottoms, grew higher and heavier, and the old bridge began to tremble. Meanwhile the fresh engine that had taken the White Mail that morning at Effingham was quivering across the great prairies of Illinois. Pausing to quench her thirst at Highlands she dashed away again and was now whistling for St. Jacobs. A drunken little Dutch tailor, who had boarded the train at the last stop, insisted upon getting off at St. Jacobs.
“The next stop is East St. Louis,” said Conductor Wise, punching his ticket.
“Vell, eef you sthop or nit, I git off ust de same,” and, as the train whistled, a quarter of a mile above the station, the fool Dutchman stepped out into space and came down on the east end of the platform.
The agent, standing in front of the station (it was a sight to see the White Mail go by an hour late), saw a bundle of old clothes come rolling swiftly down the long platform, and finally fetch up with a bump against the end of the depot. The Dutchman was in that bundle. In all the history of the Vandalia Line the greatest marvel is that this man lived;that he actually got up and asked the agent to have a glass of beer. So, if there is ever a proper time for a man to become hopelessly and helplessly inebriated, it would seem to be just before getting off a mail train onto a hardwood platform at a mile a minute.
About the time the Dutchman hit the earth, the old bridge began to tremble and crack, like the breaking up of a hard winter. A moment later the great stringers parted, the river, laden with logs and trees, rushed into the opening, and the bridge was gone.
Even as Tommy turned his mule the water was running across the track between the ties. The mule, gladdened by the prospect of avoiding the pump and getting back to the stable, trotted briskly away, and finally, by dint of much kicking and thumping, broke into a run.
Tommy knew that the White Mail was almost due, and that if he failed to gain the ridge before she pitched over, she must leap into that awful flood, with all on board. He knew the old engineer, and how he ran when the Mail was late. He thought of the newsboy,now a flagman, who had given him picture papers, of Conductor Wise and his pretty daughter—almost as pretty as Mary.
When he came to the road-crossing where they usually turned off, the mule stopped. Tommy reined him to the track again and urged him on. He could almost see over the ridge, but not quite. A heavy mist was rising from the wet earth, filling the wood with gray fog. The boy glanced back, but could see nothing. The roar of the river, pouring over the grade, grew louder, instead of fainter, as he rode away.
Suddenly the White Mail screamed on the ridge, not a thousand feet from the mule. Instantly Tommy reined him over the rail, waving his straw hat in lieu of a flag. The mule moved slowly, showing contempt for the train. Until now, Tommy had not thought of his own life. He felt that the train would stop—must stop. Peering from his window, the old engineer saw something on the track, and instantly felt like hitting it, for was he not already nearly an hour late? He would not shut off. A second glance showed him the rider, dimly through thegray mist. Now he saw the hat and recognized the pump boy. The old man’s heart stood still as he shoved the throttle home, but it was too late, and Tommy and the mule went out of the right-of-way.
Denis McGuire had seen the engine strike the boy and hurried to him where he lay.
His mother came, and presently many of the neighbors, the trainmen, and some of the passengers. His mother lifted his head and held it in her lap.
They brought some water from the car and threw it in his face, and he came to life again. The men put money in his old straw hat; the women kissed him; for the train had stopped with the nose of the engine at the water-edge. After casting a pitying glance at the remains of the old mule, Tommy went away, walking wabbly, between little Mary and his mother.