“This is ‘young Ward.’”
“Say, youngster, would you care to do a couple of weeks’ vacation relief at Hadley Corners, beginning next Monday? The man there wants to get off badly, and we have no one here we can send.”
“Most certainly I would,” replied Alex, promptly.
“OK then. We’ll count on you. I’ll send a pass down to-night,” said the despatcher.
Thus it came about that the following Monday morning Alex alighted at the little crossing depot known as Hadley Corners, and for the second time found himself, if but temporarily, in full charge of a station.
Entering the little telegraph room, he announced his arrival to the despatcher at “X.”
“Good,” clicked the sounder. “And now, look here, Ward. Don’t do any tinkering with the instruments while you are there. We don’t want a repetition of the mix-up you got the wire into at BX through your joking a month or so ago.”
The joke referred to was a hoax Alex had played on his father the previous First of April. Through an arrangement of wires beneath the office table, by which with his foot, unseen, he could make the instruments above click as though worked from another office, he had called his father to the wire, and posing as the despatcher, had severely reprimanded him for some imaginary mistake in a train order. It had been “all kinds of a lark,” until, unfortunately, the connections became disarranged, tying up the entire eastern end of the line for half an hour.
At the recollection of the escapade Alex laughed heartily. Nevertheless he promptly replied, “OK, sir. I won’t touch a thing.” And the despatcher saying nothing more, he began calling Bixton.
“I’m here, Dad,” he announced when his father answered; “and it’s a fine little place. The woods come almost up to the back of the station, and the nearest house is a mile away. That’s where I am to board. The other operator arranged it. It’s going to be a regular little picnic.”