Charlie and His Puppy Bingo

by Helen Hill; Violet Maxwell

CHARLIE RIDES IN THE ENGINE OF A REAL TRAIN

ONE day Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie and Topsy and Bingo and Jane went to stay in the country.

It was a very interesting place where they were going to stay in the country. What do you think? It was the place where Charlie’s Daddy had lived when he was a little boy!

Yes, that is where they were going, and, as it was a Saturday, Charlie’s Daddy was going with them, too. He was not going to live with them in the country, because on weekdays he had to go to the office every day. But he said that he would come down every Saturday and stay in the country till Sunday night.

So they all went to the railway station in a taxicab. Jane traveled in a cat basket and Charlie’s Auntie carried her. Topsy also traveled in a cat basket and Charlie’s Mother carried him, but Bingo had to travel in the baggage car and he had a ticket all to himself because he was a dog. Charlie thought that he ought to feel very proud.

When they got to the station they all went straight through the gate to the platform, and there the train was waiting for them. It was a great e-nor-mous train with ever so many coaches. First, Charlie and his Daddy took Bingo to the baggage car, and the baggage man fastened Bingo’s leash to the end of a trunk and promised Charlie to be good to Bingo.

Then they all got into the day car, and the train gave a loud whistle and steamed out of the station. My goodness! how fast it went! Everything just seemed to go flying past.

Bingo had to travel in the baggage car

Soon the conductor came walking down the aisle and he took everybody’s ticket. He was a very grand-looking man; he was tall, and stout, and he had a beautiful blue uniform on. He soon came to the seat where Charlie and his Daddy were sitting, and he took the tickets. Yes, the conductor took all the tickets and he stuck Charlie’s Daddy’s ticket in his hatband, but as his Mother and his Auntie had no hatbands, he stuck their tickets into the top of the seat in front of them. Then he took Charlie’s ticket, and he stuck it in Charlie’s hatband. Charlie felt very proud, and he would not take his hat off. No, he kept his hat on all the time because he wanted everybody to see that he had a ticket in his hatband just like all the other men.

Then Charlie said to his Daddy, “Daddy, what ex-act-ly makes the train go?”

And his Daddy said, “It’s the steam that makes the engine work, and it is the engineer and the fireman who look after the steam and the engine.” Then Charlie said, “What I want to know is ex-act-ly what the fireman and the engineer do when they are making the engine go.”

But what do you think? His Daddy did not know ex-act-ly what they did—he said that he had never ridden on an engine in his life, so how could he know what they did? And Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie did not know either. That was very surprising.

Well, after they had been in the big train for about a whole hour, they came to a station where there were a lot of tracks. This station was called a junction, because there were so many tracks.

Some of the tracks went to the North and some to the South and some to the East and some to the West. The train that Charlie and his Daddy and his Auntie and his Mother were on was going toward the West; but now they wanted to go to the North, so they had to change trains and go on a train that was going toward the North.

The train was already waiting on its own track. It was a very little train, it had only two coaches!

Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie and Jane and Topsy got into the train, and they took Bingo with them, because, as it was such a little unimportant train, the conductor said that Bingo could travel in the day coach instead of being tied up in the baggage car, and Bingo was very glad. But Charlie and his Daddy waited on the platform till it was time for the train to start, and they looked at all the interesting things about them.

Then a man came up. He wore overalls and a peaked cap. And—you never can guess who it was? It was the fireman who helped work the engine of the train they were going to take. And what do you think? The fireman knew Charlie’s Daddy! Yes, the fireman came up to them, and said to his Daddy, “Hello, Bob!” Bob was his Daddy’s name that his Mother and his Auntie always called him! And his Daddy said, “Why—Hello, Bill,” and they shook hands.

Charlie was very much surprised that the fireman and his Daddy knew each other, but it was not so very surprising after all. The fireman lived in the village where Charlie’s Daddy had lived when he was a little boy, and where Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie were going to live for a whole month, and his Daddy and the fireman had gone to the same school when they were little boys!

Well, the fireman then looked at Charlie, and he said, “And is this your boy?”

Then Charlie’s Daddy said, “Yes, this is Charlie, and you are the very man he wants to meet. Charlie wants to know ex-act-ly what the fireman and the engineer do to make the train go—and he can’t find anybody who knows. So go ahead and tell him all about it.”

But the fireman said, “I can do better than that. Suppose you and Charlie take a ride on the engine with me; then he can see everything with his own eyes, and learn all there is to know in case he wants to be a fireman himself.”

Yes, the fireman ac-tu-al-ly said those words! And Charlie’s Daddy said, “That will be fine. I’ll just go and tell Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie what has become of us, so that they won’t worry.”

And he did so. Then the fireman, and Charlie and his Daddy all got into the cab, which is back of the engine, where the engineer and the fireman sit.

The engineer was already sitting in his place, which is on the right of the cab. He was very pleased to meet Charlie and his Daddy, but he said that after the train had started he would not be able to speak a word to anybody, and nobody must speak to him. Yes, nobody must ever speak to the engineer when he is driving the engine, because if anybody spoke to the engineer it might distract his attention and then the train might be wrecked!

All the time that the train is going the engineer has to sit on his seat with his hand on the throttle, which is the thing that makes the train stop in a hurry, and all the time he has to look out of the window to see what the signals say, and to see that there is nothing on the track ahead of him.

If he sees a green signal on the signal post that means that the engine can go straight ahead, but if the signal is red, then it means “Stop”—and the engineer presses on the throttle, and the train stops.

The engineer told all this to Charlie while they were waiting for the train to start. Then the engineer got the signal from the man on the platform; he blew the whistle, and the train started, and he could not say another word.

Well, the fireman’s place is on the left side of the cab, and Charlie’s Daddy sat between him and the window, and Charlie sat on his Daddy’s knee.

The fireman has to work very hard, but when he is not working he can talk if he wants to. This fireman was very kind, and, when he was not working, he explained everything to Charlie and his Daddy—but all the time he was ex-plain-ing he had to keep looking out of the window, too, in case he should see anything that the engineer did not see. There are a great many windows in the cab of an engine—it has windows all round, because it is so very important that the engineer and the fireman shall see all that there is to see.

Well, I will now tell you what the fireman was doing all the time that Charlie and his Daddy were riding on the engine with him.

In front of the fireman was the steam gauge, which is a round thing like a clock, and it has a hand like a clock hand, too, and the steam makes the hand move—so that you can see how much steam is coming out of the boiler. When the steam is getting low the hand drops, and when the hand of the gauge drops to 150 the fireman knows it is time to put more coal in the fire box.

Every time that the hand of the gauge dropped to 150 the fireman got up and opened a little door in the back of the cab, which opened right into the fire box, so that you could see the fire all red and glowing, and the fireman scooped a great shovel full of coal into it. The fireman told Charlie that it was very important how one shovels the coal into the fire box. It has to be shoveled very evenly, so that it is not all black with coal in one place and all red hot with embers in another place. Yes, the fireman told Charlie that it needs a lot of practice before one can shovel the coal in just ex-act-ly right.

Then the fireman also had to watch the water gauge, which shows how much water there is in the boiler.

When he saw by the water gauge that the water was getting low in the boiler, then the fireman had to turn a valve, which is a sort of handle that starts a pump working, and the pump pumps water into the boiler.

Charlie very much wanted to turn the valve himself, but the fireman said, “No,” that it needed a whole lot of practice before one could pump water into the tank—as it was very important just how much water to pump. If too much cold water is pumped into the boiler it might cool the water already in the boiler so that no more steam would come out—and then the train would stop!

Do you think that the fireman on an engine is a busy man? Indeed he is!

But that is not all that the fireman has to do. Oh, dear, no! The fireman has a lot more work to do.

When the train is coming to a steep place—and there were a lot of steep places on the railroad that Charlie was traveling on—the fireman has to make the fire red hot, so that lots and lots of steam can come out of the boiler. He makes the fire get hotter and hotter until the steam gets so strong that the “safety valve” pops off—and this shows the engineer that there is enough steam to push the train up the steep place. Yes, you can see that it would need a lot of extra steam to push a train up a steep, high hill.

The fireman also has to blow a whistle, whenever the train comes to a crossing or to the station. And when they got to the last stop—which was the village where Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie and Bingo and Topsy and Jane were going to live for a whole month—the fireman let Charlie blow the whistle himself! Yes, he did, and you should have heard what a loud whistle Charlie blew.

Well, at last they had come to the end of their journey, and Charlie certainly had learned a whole lot about engines. Yes, Charlie had learned a whole lot more than most people know. Of course he told his Mother and his Auntie about everything, so that they, too, should know all about what the fireman and the engineer do to make the train go.

And Charlie said, “Now, when I get home to the city I will be able to play with my train in just the right way. I will be able to play that I am the fireman and the engineer, and I will know ex-act-ly what they do, and I will practice and practice being a fireman so that I can be one when I grow up!”