The Young Train Dispatcher

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

“Bacon tells about it in one of his essays,” Allan answered. “It seems that Mahomet announced one day that he would call a hill to him, and offer up prayers from the top of it. A great crowd assembled and Mahomet called the hill again and again, but it didn’t move, and finally, without seeming worried or abashed, he announced that, since the mountain wouldn’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain, and marched away to it as proudly as though the mountain had obeyed him.”

“That is the first time I ever heard the whole story,” said Mrs. Heywood, laughing, and she shot him a little observing glance, for he seemed an unusual boy. Then she led him on to tell her something of himself, and almost before he knew it, he was telling her much more than he had ever thought to tell any one. There was a subtle sympathy about her—in her smile, in her quiet eyes—which there was no resisting.

She sent him away, at last, to join the younger guests, but he did not feel at ease with them, as he had with the older woman. They were all polite enough, but youth is selfish, and Allan soon found that he and they had few interests in common; there was nothing to talk about; they had not the same friends, nor the same habits of thought; there were no mutual recollections to laugh over, nor plans to make for next day or next week. Of his hostess he saw very little, for her other guests claimed her attention at every turn—Betty Heywood was evidently immensely popular.

So Allan was glad, on the whole, when the time came to take his leave, and as he walked homeward under the bright stars, he was forced to admit that his first evening in society had been, in a way, a failure. He resolved that he did not care for it and would not go again. Indeed, he had no chance, for Bess Heywood’s friends voted him a “stick,” and soon forgot all about him. Nor did that young lady herself preserve a very vivid recollection of him, for her days were filled with other duties and pleasures. Her mother’s invalidism threw upon her much of the responsibility of household management, and she was just at the age when social claims are heaviest and most difficult to evade. Not that she sought to evade them, for she enjoyed social relaxation, but in the whirl of party and ball, of calling and receiving calls, the memory of that afternoon in the operator’s shanty at the Junction grew faint and far away.

And Allan, in the long evenings, buried himself in his books and banished resolutely whatever dreams may have arisen in his heart, with such philosophy as he possessed.

He soon had other things to think about. One of the dispatchers, in a moment of carelessness, had issued contradictory orders which had resulted in a wreck. In consequence he was compelled to seek a position somewhere else, and everybody below him in the office moved up a notch. The extra dispatcher was given a regular trick, and his place in consequence became vacant.

A day or two later, Allan received a message from the trainmaster ordering him to report at headquarters, and when he did so, he found that he was to be initiated into the mysteries of the dispatchers’ office.

“That is, if you want the job,” added Mr. Schofield.

Allan pondered a moment. The responsibilities of such a position frightened him. As an operator, he had only to carry out the orders sent him; but as a dispatcher it would be his duty to issue those orders. The difference was the same as that between the general of an army and the private in the ranks. The private has only to obey orders, without bothering as to their wisdom or folly; if a defeat follows, it is the general who must answer for it. So each dispatcher has under him, for eight hours every day, one hundred miles of track, and a regiment of operators and trainmen, who must obey his orders without question. That stretch of track is the battlefield, and the victory to be gained is to move over it, without accident, and on time, such passenger and freight trains as the business of the road demands. This is the problem which confronts the dispatcher every time he sits down before his desk.

All this flashed through Allan’s mind in that moment of reflection. And yet he did not really hesitate. He knew that the only road of advancement open to him lay through the dispatchers’ office. There was no way around. If he faltered now, he must remain an operator always.