The White Mail

by Cy Warman

“I don’ feel like ut, Tommy,” said Jack, “t’ mar’ I’ll go in, maby.”

Tommy and the dog took a few dives from the bridge, when Jack, who had been standing guard, shouted to his companion to “hustle on his duds” for Mary was coming down the track with the dinner.

Tommy, properly attired, was waiting at the narrow foot-bridge that lay across the ditch from the grade to the little shanty. He took the basket and the jug of buttermilk, and Mary, young as she was, felt and appreciated these little attentions from the young gallant. She spread a newspaper on the little pine table and put down the plates.

“Watcher doin’ uv three plates, Mary?” asked Jack.

“Mamma said I could hev dinner wif you’uns,” said Mary, shyly.

“’S matter uv yo’, Jack Connor? Think girls never gits hungry?” demanded Tommy, tumbling over his companion and rolling him in the high grass.

There was no fried chicken, no green peas, no radishes, nor corn, nor bread and butter; there was nothing—not even chicken bones—when the banquet was over, for the dog had eaten the bones.

Mary picked up the dishes and the empty jug, and when Tommy had climbed up in the old sugar tree to see if the young birds were out, she swept the little shanty and gathered a bouquet of wild flowers and placed them in a tomato can on the little table.

When Tommy had helped her over the bridge the boys put the mule out to grass. They tied his long reata to the rope that hung from the water tank—the rope the fireman pulls when the engine stops for water—and then sat under the tank, playing mumblety-peg, while the mule regaled himself on the luxurious grass. Jack soon grew tired of the sport, put his head on the oat-bag and fell asleep. In a little while Tommy followed him, for they were exceedingly comfortable and content with the big tank full of water and their own little tanks full of wholesome food and buttermilk. They had scarcely begun to dream, however, when an extra west came creeping up over the ridge. The engineer was fanning them down the long slope in order to be able to lift them over the hill at Hagler’s tank, when he observed the old pump mule slowly crossing the track beyond the bridge. He sounded the whistle and the mule stopped, with his hind legs not far from the outer rail. The whistle screamed frantically, and the brakeman climbed out of the caboose to the top of the cars to be near the brakes in case of danger. The boys slept peacefully under the tank. The mule raised his head and looked at the locomotive. He had a placid contempt for screaming locomotives, whose very breath of life was drawn from tanks which he, and his kind, were forced to fill. The travel-worn engine had ceased its screaming and was now driving madly, and with malice aforethought, toward the mule. At the last moment—not from fear of the machine, but because he hated it—the mule moved a space away. This move on the part of the mule tightened the rope slightly, so that the pilot of the engine picked it up and stretched it across the front end of the flying locomotive. A moment later the mule, at one end of the rope, received a jerk that turned him over, and the tank valve, at the other end of the rope, was pulled wide open. A great stream of water, as big around as one of the boys, now shot down against the side of the passing train, and, rebounding, spread out under the tank. The boys, thus suddenly awakened by the cold flood, which, before they could get to their feet, began to roll them over and almost smothered them, thought they must be in the midst of a cloud-burst. The roar of the train was so deafening they could not call to each other. If they stood up, the weight of the falling water knocked them down again. When the train had gone by the noise grew less terrific and Tommy fought his way to the open air. A glance at the surroundings showed him what had happened, and he hastily dragged little Jack, drenched, half drowned, and thoroughly frightened, from under the tank. One end of the broken rope had wrapped around the water-spout and held the valve open. Tommy climbed upon the tank-ladder, extricated the rope, and that closed the valve.

The old mule, which had caused all the trouble, was hitched up again and started ’round on his endless journey to put up the few hundreds of barrels of water that had been wasted.