* * * * *
THE ENGINEER'S STORY.
No, children, my trips are over,
The engineer needs rest;
My hand is shaky; I'm feeling
A tugging pain i' my breast;
But here, as the twilight gathers,
I'll tell you a tale of the road,
That'll ring in my head forever
Till it rests beneath the sod.
We were lumbering along in the twilight,
The night was dropping her shade,
And the "Gladiator" laboured—
Climbing the top of the grade;
The train was heavily laden,
So I let my engine rest,
Climbing the grading slowly,
Till we reached the upland's crest.
I held my watch to the lamplight—
Ten minutes behind time!
Lost in the slackened motion
Of the up grade's heavy climb;
But I knew the miles of the prairie
That stretched a level track,
So I touched the gauge of the boiler,
And pulled the lever back.
Over the rails a gleaming,
Thirty an hour, or so,
The engine leaped like a demon,
Breathing a fiery glow;
But to me—a-hold of the lever—
It seemed a child alway,
Trustful and always ready
My lightest touch to obey.
I was proud, you know, of my engine,
Holding it steady that night,
And my eye on the track before us,
Ablaze with the Drummond light.
We neared a well-known cabin,
Where a child of three or four,
As the up train passed, oft called me,
A-playing around the door.
My hand was firm on the throttle
As we swept around the curve,
When something afar in the shadow,
Struck fire through every nerve.
I sounded the brakes, and crashing
The reverse lever down in dismay,
Groaning to Heaven—eighty paces
Ahead was the child at its play!
One instant—one, awful and only,
The world flew round in my brain,
And I smote my hand hard on my forehead
To keep back the terrible pain;
The train I thought flying forever,
With mad, irresistible roll,
While the cries of the dying night wind
Swept into my shuddering soul.
Then I stood on the front of the engine—
How I got there I never could tell—
My feet planted down on the crossbar,
Where the cow-catcher slopes to the rail,—
One hand firmly locked on the coupler,
And one held out in the night,
While my eye gauged the distance, and measured
The speed of our slackening flight.