"But the watchman couldn't run her in an emergency?" queried the little woman.
"I'm afraid not," said Moran, catching the drift of her mind, and feeling proud of the compliment concealed in the harmless query. "But I shall enjoy having him come to you once a week to show you that I have not forgotten my promise."
"And I shall know," she answered, putting up a warning finger, "by his actions whether you have been good to him."
"And by the same token I can tell whether you are happy," rejoined the engineer, taking both her hands in his to say good-bye.
Moran went directly to the round-house and spoke to the foreman, and when Bennie came home that evening he threw himself upon his mother's neck and wept for very joy. His mother wept, too, for it means something to a mother to have her only boy go out to begin life on the rail. After supper they all went over to the little general store, where she had once been refused credit—where she had spent their last dollar for Christmas presents for little Bennie and his father, chiefly his father—and bought two suits of bright blue overclothes for the new fireman. "Mother, I once heard the foreman say that Dan Moran had been like a father to papa," said Bennie that evening. "Guess he'll start in being a father to me now, eh! mother?"
Mrs. Cowels smiled and kissed him, and then she cried a little, but only a little, for in spite of all her troubles she felt almost happy that night.
It was nearly midnight when Bennie finished trying on his overclothes and finally fell asleep. It was only four A. M. when he shook his mother gently and asked her to get up and get breakfast.
"What time is it, Bennie?"
"I don't know, exactly," said Bennie, "but it must be late. I've been up a long, long time. You know you have to put up my lunch, and I want to get down and draw my supplies. Couldn't do it last night 'cause they didn't know what engine we were going to have."
Mrs. Cowels got up and prepared breakfast and Bennie ate hurriedly and then began to look out for the caller. He would have gone to the round-house at once but he wanted to sign the callbook at home. How he had envied the firemen who had been called by him. He knew just how it would be written in the callbook: