[to be continued.]
TWO STORIES OF YOUTHFUL HEROISM.[3]
BY MARY A. BARR.
HOW KATE SHELLEY CROSSED THE BRIDGE.
KATE SHELLEY.
From a Photograph by J. Paul Martin, Boone, Iowa.
Oh, but the night was wild and dark, and the wind blew fierce and high!
Oh, but the lightning flashed and shot across the inky sky!
While the hurtling thunder cracked and rolled, till down the black clouds came,
And earth seemed nothing at all to sight but water, wind, and flame.
Kate Shelley stands at her cottage door, and peers out into the night,
For she sees, slow creeping through the storm, the pilot-engine's light,
And it must cross the trestle-bridge above the swollen creek:
It stops—it runs—then down it drops, with one long fearsome shriek.
"Kate, stay!" the wailing mother cries; but the young soul rose high—
"Nay, mother, I must try to help, though I should fail or die."
She finds the wreck, but can not save, yet from the deep below
A man shouts up two frightened words. She answers him: "I know."
The train! the train! the swift express! the crowded Western train!
How shall she quickest reach the wires? By Boone the hope is vain.
But to Moingona's but a mile, and yet so wild and drear,
To brave it through the stormy night the stoutest heart might fear.
Torn by the undergrowth, and drenched, the wind and rain defied,
She reached the raging Des Moines, and the bridge that spans its tide:
A bridge not built for human tread, but "On!" her spirit cries—
A bridge of full four hundred feet, nothing but rails and ties.
No plank the daring steps to hold, and if a step should miss,
Down fifty feet below her rolls the watery abyss.
So on her hands and knees she creeps, fighting the wind and rain,
Staining the timbers with her blood, yet heeding not the pain.
Then on and on she bravely sped! Thick darkness round her lay,
Save when the vivid lightning made a still more dreadful day;
Yet raging stream, and roaring wind, and fiercely beating rain
Delayed her not: one thought had she—to save the coming train.
At length the bridge is fairly crossed. Bleeding and out of breath,
She yet has half a mile to run—a fearful race with Death:
O'er fallen trees, o'er rocks, through creeks, until—O blessed sight!—
She sees the way-side station-house and its one glimmering light.
Then all forespent, with failing strength, she pushes wide the door;
With gleaming eyes and parted lips, she stands upon the floor:
"The trestle's down! The engines wrecked! Oh, stop the coming train!"
The man springs to the saving wires—she has not come in vain.
Then tenderly they comfort her. They ask, "How did you come?"
And, hearing, lift their hearts and hats, and are a moment dumb.
No soul among them would have dared the passage dark and wild:
Ah! but God's angels had a charge to keep this noble child.
O brave Kate Shelley! though hard toil thy daily portion be,
Mothers with happy pride now name their daughters after thee;
And every child that hears thy tale shares in thy noble strain,
And dares that perilous pass with thee to save the coming train.