But the injury was a more serious one than he had been willing to admit. When he tried to get out of bed in the morning, he found his leg so stiff and sore that he could scarcely move it. He set his teeth and managed to dress himself and hobble down-stairs, but his white face showed the agony he was suffering.
“Oh, Allan!” cried Mary, flying to him and helping him to a chair. “What did y’ want t’ come down fer? Why didn’t y’ call me?”
“I don’t want to be such a nuisance as all that!” the boy protested. “But I’m afraid I can’t go to work to-day.”
Mary sniffed scornfully.
“No—nor to-morrer!” she said. “You’re goin’ t’ stay right in that chair!”
She flew around, making him more comfortable, and Allan was coddled that day as he had not been for a long time. Whether it was the nursing or the magic qualities of Mary’s lotion, his leg was very much better by night, and the next morning was scarcely sore at all. The quickness of the healing—for it was quite well again in three or four days—was due in no small part to Allan’s healthy young blood, but he persisted in giving all the credit to Mary.
After that, Allan noticed a shade of difference in the treatment accorded him by the other men. Heretofore he had been a stranger—an outsider. Now he was so no longer. He had proved his right to consideration and respect. He was “th’ boy that saved Jack Welsh’s kid.” Report of the deed penetrated even to the offices where dwelt the men who ruled the destinies of the division, and the superintendent made a mental note of the name for future reference. The train-master, too, got out from his desk a many-paged, much-thumbed book, indexed from first to last, and, under the letter “W,” wrote a few lines. The records of nearly a thousand men, for good and bad, were in that book, and many a one, hauled up “on the carpet” to be disciplined, had been astonished and dismayed by the train-master’s familiarity with his career.
Of all the men in the gang, after the foreman, Allan found Reddy Magraw the most lovable, and the merry, big-hearted Irishman took a great liking to the boy. He lived in a little house not far from the Welshes, and he took Allan home with him one evening to introduce him to Mrs. Magraw and the “childer.” The former was a somewhat faded little woman, worn down by hard work and ceaseless self-denial, but happy despite it all, and the children were as healthy and merry a set of young scalawags as ever rolled about upon a sanded floor. There were no carpets and only the most necessary furniture,—a stove, two beds, a table, and some chairs, for there was little money left after feeding and clothing that ever hungry swarm,—but everywhere there was a scrupulous, almost painful, cleanliness. And one thing the boy learned from this visit and succeeding ones—that what he had considered poverty was not poverty at all, and that brave and cheerful hearts can light up any home.
His trunk arrived from the storage house at Cincinnati in due time, affording him a welcome change of clothing, while Mrs. Welsh set herself to work at once sewing on missing buttons, darning socks, patching trousers—doing the hundred and one things which always need to be done to the clothing of a motherless boy. Indeed, it might be fairly said that he was motherless no longer, so closely had she taken him to her heart.
Sunday came at last, with its welcome relief from toil. They lay late in bed that morning, making up lost rest, revelling in the unaccustomed luxury of leisure, and in the afternoon Jack took the boy for a tour through the shops, swarming with busy life on week-days, but now deserted, save for an occasional watchman. And here Allan got, for the first time, a glimpse of one great department of a railroad’s management which most people know nothing of. In the first great room, the “long shop,” half a dozen disabled engines were hoisted on trucks and were being rebuilt. Back of this was the foundry, where all the needed castings were made, from the tiniest bolt to the massive frame upon which the engine-boiler rests. Then there was the blacksmith shop, with its score of forges and great steam-hammer, that could deliver a blow of many tons; and next to this the lathe-room, where the castings from the foundry were shaved and planed and polished to exactly the required size and shape; and still farther on was the carpenter shop, with its maze of woodworking machinery, most wonderful of all, in its nearly human intelligence.