The agent, who was something of a philosopher, always argued that Tommy McGuire was not as bad as he was painted. He was not wicked, but curious, Heidelberg said. When he put precisely the same sized can to Jimmie Connor’s dog that he put to his own dog, it was not to punish the brutes, but merely to see which would get home first, and settle a dispute of long standing.
When he took his red spaniel under his naked arm and dived from the top of the bridge when the river was running bank full, it was merely to see which could stay under water longest, himself or the dog. And so, behind all of his mischief, the agent was able to see a motive. It was the boy’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge that made him want to explore everything, from the cave in the bluff to the crow’s nest in the top of the tallest sycamore.
It may be that the Connor boys were no better because of his visits, but they were happier; he was company for them and made them forget. He awed them with his wonderful feats of climbing, diving, swimming, and jumping. When Jimmie, the watchman, would shrink back and hold his cap as the cars roared past, Tommy McGuire would stand close to the rail and laugh in the face of the screaming steed. Once, just to see how it would feel, he hung from the bridge by his legs while the Midnight Express went by.
One morning Mrs. Connor saw Jimmie swinging down from the cab of a freight engine. His feet slipped from the iron step, he fell, and his mother put her hands over her eyes and screamed. In a moment he was on his feet again, waving his cap encouragingly to his mother and signalling to the engine crew to go ahead. But he was not unhurt. When they removed his trousers they found that the flange of a tank wheel had sliced the whole calf off one of his legs right down to the bone.
While the rest were busy with the wounded boy, Tommy McGuire went down to the tank to break the news to little Jack. “Don’t you be afraid,” said he to the pale boy who was two years his senior, “if anything happens to Jimmie I’ll take care uv you. Dad says I’m no good, mother says I’m sassy, Mis’ Dutton says I’m ‘onry’ and the priest says I’m ‘incourageable,’ and I guess they’re all about right, but you know me, Jack, eh? old man! an’ you know I’ll do what I say.”
There were tears in the eyes of the pump boy when Tommy took his two hands, gave him a jerk forward, let him go and hit him a hard jab in the ribs, and then, as he turned, gave him a kick that looked worse than it was.
“An’ I’ve got a frien’ Jack me boy, ’at can git us anythin’ from a push car to a private train—that’s Mr. Heidelberg—he’s me frien’.”
Ten days from the day the accident occurred, they cut Jimmie’s leg off, but it was too late. He never revived, and before the bewildered children and the grief-sick mother could realize what had happened, they had crossed his helpless hands over his youthful breast and lighted the candles.
That night McGuire and his men came and “waked” Jimmie, as they had waked his father only a few short months before.
U. P. Burns came with his black pipe and his black bottle and smoked and drank and sang “come-all-ye” songs.