Actresses“Come, let us within.”
Actresses“Come, let us within.”
“Come, let us within.”
An Engineer’s Ride on a Piano.Bill Jones is my fireman; we have run together on old “thirty-six” for more than twenty years. One night when we were off duty, said Bill, “Jim, let’s take in a show.” “Where?” I replied, at the same time scanning the bill-board at the end of the depot. “See!” cried Bill, “Mons. De Froglimb, the great French piano virtuoso—” “That’s enough, Bill,” said I, “we’ll go”—and we did. Hewasa Frenchman; looked like an animated switch-signal. I am an old engineer, and have often whistled through the wind, but that virtuoso!—Well, as soon as he sat down on the stool I knew by the wayhe handled himself that he understood the machine he was running. He tapped the keys away up one end, just as if they were gauges and he wanted to see if he had water enough. Then he looked up as if he wanted to know how much steam he was carrying, and the next moment he pulled open the throttle and sailed out on the main line as if he was a half an hour late.“You could hear her thunder over culverts and bridges, and getting faster and faster, until the fellow rocked about in his seat like a cradle. Somehow I thought it was old ‘thirty-six’ pulling a passenger train and getting out of the way of a ‘special.’ The fellow worked his keys on the middle division like lightning, and then he flew along the north end of the line until the drivers went around like a buzz-saw, and I got excited. About the time I was fixing to tell him to cut her off a little, he kicked the dampers under the machine wide open, pulled the throttle away back in the tender, and, Jerusalem jumpers! how he did run! I couldn’t stand it any longer, and yelled to him that she was ‘pounding’ on the left side, and if he wasn’t careful he’d drop his ashpan.“But he didn’t hear me. No one heard me. Everything was flying and whizzing. Telegraph poles on the side of the track looked like a row of cornstalks, the trees appeared to be a mud bank, and all the time the exhaust of the old machine sounded like the hum of a bumblebee. I tried to yell out, but my tongue wouldn’t move. He went around the curves like a bullet, slipped an eccentric, blew out his soft plug, went down grades fifty feet to the mile, and not a confounded brake set. She went by the meeting point at a mile and a half a minute and calling for more steam. My hair stood up like a cat’s tail, because I knew the game was up.“Sure enough, dead ahead of us was the head-light of the‘special.’ In a daze I heard the crash as they struck, and I saw cars shivered into atoms, people mashed and mangled, and bleeding, and gasping for water. I heard another crash as the French professor struck the deep keys away down on the lower end of the southern division, and then I came to my senses. There he was, at a dead standstill, with the door of the fire-box of the machine open, wiping the perspiration off his face, and bowing at the people before him. If I live to be a thousand years old I’ll never forget the ride that Frenchman gave me on a piano.”
Bill Jones is my fireman; we have run together on old “thirty-six” for more than twenty years. One night when we were off duty, said Bill, “Jim, let’s take in a show.” “Where?” I replied, at the same time scanning the bill-board at the end of the depot. “See!” cried Bill, “Mons. De Froglimb, the great French piano virtuoso—” “That’s enough, Bill,” said I, “we’ll go”—and we did. Hewasa Frenchman; looked like an animated switch-signal. I am an old engineer, and have often whistled through the wind, but that virtuoso!—Well, as soon as he sat down on the stool I knew by the wayhe handled himself that he understood the machine he was running. He tapped the keys away up one end, just as if they were gauges and he wanted to see if he had water enough. Then he looked up as if he wanted to know how much steam he was carrying, and the next moment he pulled open the throttle and sailed out on the main line as if he was a half an hour late.
“You could hear her thunder over culverts and bridges, and getting faster and faster, until the fellow rocked about in his seat like a cradle. Somehow I thought it was old ‘thirty-six’ pulling a passenger train and getting out of the way of a ‘special.’ The fellow worked his keys on the middle division like lightning, and then he flew along the north end of the line until the drivers went around like a buzz-saw, and I got excited. About the time I was fixing to tell him to cut her off a little, he kicked the dampers under the machine wide open, pulled the throttle away back in the tender, and, Jerusalem jumpers! how he did run! I couldn’t stand it any longer, and yelled to him that she was ‘pounding’ on the left side, and if he wasn’t careful he’d drop his ashpan.
“But he didn’t hear me. No one heard me. Everything was flying and whizzing. Telegraph poles on the side of the track looked like a row of cornstalks, the trees appeared to be a mud bank, and all the time the exhaust of the old machine sounded like the hum of a bumblebee. I tried to yell out, but my tongue wouldn’t move. He went around the curves like a bullet, slipped an eccentric, blew out his soft plug, went down grades fifty feet to the mile, and not a confounded brake set. She went by the meeting point at a mile and a half a minute and calling for more steam. My hair stood up like a cat’s tail, because I knew the game was up.
“Sure enough, dead ahead of us was the head-light of the‘special.’ In a daze I heard the crash as they struck, and I saw cars shivered into atoms, people mashed and mangled, and bleeding, and gasping for water. I heard another crash as the French professor struck the deep keys away down on the lower end of the southern division, and then I came to my senses. There he was, at a dead standstill, with the door of the fire-box of the machine open, wiping the perspiration off his face, and bowing at the people before him. If I live to be a thousand years old I’ll never forget the ride that Frenchman gave me on a piano.”