CHAPTER XXIII
THE MAID OF ERIN
“Yousent for me?” asked the General Manager of the Vandalia.
“Yes,” said the President. “You remember Tom McGuire?”
“Is he the fellow that rode a mule into the White Mail one morning at West Silver Creek?”
“The same freckled Thomas.”
“Well, I can’t say that I remember him, for I have never seen him; but I have not had an opportunity to forget the story of his having saved a couple of trains for the company. Every time I go down the Line someone reminds me of his heroism. It got to that pass that when I heard the car hit the East Bridge I looked up. In would come this man’s father, who is now roadmaster on the west end, and say, ‘There’s phare Tommy—’ and if I happened to be alone the conductor wouldbreak the great news to me, until I am sick of the story.”
“Well,” said the President, “this Thomas is coming over the road to-day. He has just been re-elected President and General Manager of the Inter-Mountain Air Line. He is bringing a wife with him; the daughter of one of the directors, and I want to arrange a little surprise for him.”
“That means a special train, I suppose?”
“No, that would not surprise him, for they are running him special over the Pennsylvania. Do you think we could make time with his car on the White Mail?”
“Well, we can try it. I’ll wire Sedgwick to give us the best engines on the road. It will please him, I dare say, to ride down on the White Mail.”
“Please him! why the Van will get all the business that originates on the Inter-Mountain for the next hundred years.”
“Shall you meet him at the train?”
“Ah, yes. We’re very good friends; he did his first work for me when I was general passenger agent.”
An hour later the office boy handed a piece of white paper to the Trainmaster, upon which was written:
“Put President McGuire’s car, ‘Maid of Erin,’ on the White Mail to-night. G. M.”
“Put President McGuire’s car, ‘Maid of Erin,’ on the White Mail to-night. G. M.”
“Who gave you this, boy?”
“G. M.”
“Himself?”
“That same.”
“Well, you take this back and ask him if he means the Night Express.”
Presently the boy came back, stopped in front of the Trainmaster’s desk, and startled the office by reading aloud:
“Trainmaster, St. Louis, Vandalia, Terre Haute and Indianapolis Railroad, Indianapolis:—Put President McGuire’s car, ‘Maid of Erin’ on the White Mail to-night. G. M.”
“Trainmaster, St. Louis, Vandalia, Terre Haute and Indianapolis Railroad, Indianapolis:—
Put President McGuire’s car, ‘Maid of Erin’ on the White Mail to-night. G. M.”
“Who told you to read that?” shouted the indignant Trainmaster.
“The G. M. told me to read it to you and see that you understood it.”
There was a mischievous twinkle in the boy’s eye, and gore in the eye of the T. M.
The operators, bending over their keys, glanced at each other, but there were no comments. There is very little talking in the office where the despatchers work.
“Here, boy,” said the Trainmaster, handing a piece of clip to the messenger. “Take that to the yardmaster.” This order read:
“Hook the ‘Maid of Erin’ on the White Mail to-night.”
“Who gave you this message?” demanded the yardmaster.
The boy was ready to explode with fun.
“The T. M.”
“Well, you go back, sonny, and ask him if he’s off his nut, see?” The boy reached for the paper, but the man held it back. “Go and ask Mr. Gilroy to explain this to you,” said the yardmaster. “Ask him if he means the White Mail or the Night Express.”
Presently the boy came back, and, hooking his white light on his arm as he had seen passenger conductors do, he stood in the centre of the yardmaster’s office, and, havingfirst arrested the attention of the switchmen, engineers, and firemen who were “railroading” there, read aloud:
“To the yardmaster, St. Louis, Vandalia, Terre Haute, and Indianapolis Railroad, Indianapolis:—Hook the ‘Maid of Erin’ on the White Mail to-night. T. M.”
“To the yardmaster, St. Louis, Vandalia, Terre Haute, and Indianapolis Railroad, Indianapolis:—
Hook the ‘Maid of Erin’ on the White Mail to-night. T. M.”
“Damn your skin, kid, who told you to read that?”
“The T. M. Told me to read it to you and see that you understood it, see?”
The engine had just been coupled to the White Mail, that had come in carrying green signals, when the special, running as second section of No. 1, whistled in. The President of the Vandalia boarded the “Maid of Erin,” introduced the General Manager, and they were in turn introduced to Mrs. McGuire. By this time a yard engine had dashed up out of a siding, picked up the car, and set her gently on behind the White Mail.
“What time shall we reach the river?” asked the President of the Inter-Mountain.
“At 7.50,” said the President of the Vandalia.“Possibly 7.49, but it will not be 51, Tommy, you can bet on that.”
“To-morrow night,” said McGuire, surprised but smiling. “How pokey you are!”
“To-morrow morning, if you please.”
“What, you’re not running us special? Now I don’t want you to do that.”
“No, you are going on a regular train,” said the Van man.
“Then,” said McGuire, waving his hand enthusiastically, “we’re on the White Mail. Kate, do you hear? we’re going through on the White Mail to-night. Say, this is—”
“Good night! Good-bye,” said the officials, for the car was going. The yard engine was giving them a kick out over the switches, and by the time the President and General Manager got to the rear platform the train was making fifteen miles an hour. The headlights of the pony shone full upon the happy faces of the bride and groom on the rear of the “Maid of Erin,” and with a hurried last good night, the two officials dropped off, one on either side.
They had long since ceased to carry passengerson the White Mail, and the engineer, who is not always consulted, wondered why they hung back so that night.
This “Maid of Erin” car had a false bottom, and between the two floors there was a layer of forty-five pound steel rails, laid close together, to weight her down and make her ride easy. At Terre Haute, the engineer called the conductor: “What in thunder you got on behind there to-night, Jack?”
“Private car—‘Maid of Erin.’”
“Huh!” said the old driver, “I thought, way the damn thing pulled, it must be made o’ lead.”
When the conductor learned at Terre Haute that the man in the private car was President McGuire, Thomas McGuire, freckled Tommy, who used to run the pump at West Silver Creek, he could scarcely wait until they pulled out before going in to see the great railroad man.
When they had passed over the last switch the conductor went back. McGuire turned and glanced at the man in the bright uniform.
“I beg pardon,” stammered the conductor, “I thought you were alone.”
“Oh, don’t mention it, we’re railroad people—sit down. I assure you that you could not be more welcome.”
“But—I was looking for Mr. McGuire—I thought he might—well, we used to work together at Silver Creek.”
“Is your name Connor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought so. Now have you been on this train since you left Indianapolis, and just now showed up?”
“But, you’re not Tom—Mr. McGuire?”
“Yes,—I—am—Tom Mr. McGuire,” and the President took the two hands of the sallow conductor and looked into his face.
“Katie,” he said suddenly, “this is Jack Connor—little Jack that helped me detect the train robbers when we were hiding from the police. Shake hands with Mrs. McGuire, Jack, and then sit down.”
Mrs. McGuire had been sleeping for two hours. Jack had, at McGuire’s request, been telling him all his troubles. Things were going from bad to worse. The Engineers and Firemenwere organized to fight, but the O. R. C., the conductors’ organization, was opposed to strikes, and he, this restless, unhappy soul, was working hard and hopefully for the formation of a colossal union of all railroad organizations, against which the soulless corporations could not prevail.
“But what’s the good of all this work and worry, Jack?”
“For mutual protection. For the general welfare of workingmen.”
“Oh, workingmen be hanged! aren’t we all workingmen? Wait till you are President of a railroad, Jack. When your nerves are shaken and your head roars when you go to bed, and you lie awake half the night trying to work out a scheme by which you can save a few millions to the soulless corporation that is clubbing the wolf away from your door, and, incidentally, save your reputation and your job, then you will know what it is to be a workingman.”
Jack smiled pathetically, and glanced about at the rich hangings and expensive furnishings.
“I know what you are thinking now. You are saying, Tommy seems to be having a pretty good time. Well, did you ever see a drunk man who didn’tseemto be having fun? I’m just married.”
President McGuire had intended to offer his old playmate a position on the Air Line, but when he had heard him discourse for a couple of hours on the relations of “Capital and Labor,” he changed his mind. “A man who is always hugging a grievance will forget to flag,” was what passed through the President’s mind, and he concluded to leave his old friend on his native heath, where he was least liable to get into trouble.
“Jack, my boy,” said McGuire, with his hand on the door of his stateroom, “you’re on the wrong leg of the ‘Y,’ and you’ll be throwing sixes all your life unless you switch. If I work hard and get to the front, and you work hard and get to the front—if each man takes care of his own job, always lending a helping hand to a fellow-worker when he can, there won’t be many misfits or failures, Jack.—Good night.”