There have been of late studied efforts to introduce electric headlights on the Mountain Division. But there are grizzled men in the cab who look with distrust—silent, it is true, yet distrust—on the claims put forth for them. While Monsoon's headlight does its work—as it has done even long before Monsoon followed it to the West End, and will do long after he leaves the West End—why, they say, and reasonably enough, take on new and theoretical substitutes?
While the discussion deepens and even rages in the Wickiup, Monsoon himself is silent. Brave men are modest men. Among ourselves we don't use adjectives; where Monsoon is known it is not necessary to put anything ahead of his name—except, may be, once a month on the payroll when the cross-eyed accountant adds A. or Abe or Abraham, just as he happens to be fixed for time. Monsoon's name in itself stands for a great deal. When his brother engineers, men who have grown seamy and weather-beaten in the service, put up their voices for Monsoon's headlight; or when talkative storekeepers, who servilely jump at headquarters' experiments in order to court the favor of the high, speak for electricity, Abe Monsoon himself is silent. His light is there; let them take it or leave it as they will. If the Superintendent of Motive Power should attempt to throw it out for the new-fangled arrangement, Monsoon would doubtless feel that it was not the first time Omaha had gone wrong—and, for that matter, that neither he nor anybody else had assurance it would be the last. However—
The story opens on Bob Duffy. Bob, right from the start, was what I call a good-looker, and, being the oldest boy, he had more of the swing anyway. When Martin came along, his mother hadn't got over thinking about Bob. Doubtless she thought, too, of Martin; but he was kind of overshadowed. Bob began by clerking in the post-office and delivering mail to all the pretty girls. His sympathy for the girls was so great that after a while he began passing out letters to them whether they were addressed to the girls or to somebody else. This gradually weakened his influence with the government.
Martin began work in the telegraph office; he really learned the whole thing right there at the Bend under Callahan. Began, carrying Western Unions stuck at his waist under a heavy leather belt. He wore in those days, when he had real responsibility, a formidable brown Stetson that appeared bent on swallowing his ears: it was about the time he was rising trousers and eleven. Nobody but Sinkers ever beat Martin Duffy delivering messages, and nobody, bar none—Bullhead, McTerza, anybody—ever beat him eating pie. It was by eating pie that he was able to wear the belt so long—and you may take that either way. But I speak gladly of the pie, because in the usual course of events there isn't much pie in a despatcher's life. There is, by very large odds, more anxiety than pie, and I introduce the pie, not to give weight to the incidents that follow but rather to lighten them; though as Duffy has more recently admitted this was not always the effect of the pie itself.
I do not believe that Martin Duffy ever had an enemy. A right tight little chap he was, with always a good word, even under no end of pressure on the single track. There's many a struggling trainman that will look quick and grateful when any fellow far or near speaks a word about Martin Duffy. Fast as he climbed, his head never swelled. His hats rested, even after he got a key, same as the original Stetson, right on the wings of his ears. But his heart grew right along after his head stopped, and that's where he laid over some other railroad men I could mention if I had to, which I don't—not here.
About the time it looked as if Martin would make a go of it on the road, the post-office inspectors were thinking Bob would make a go of it over the road. But he was such a kid of a fellow that the postmaster convinced the detectives Bob's way of doing things was simple foolishness, which it probably was, and they merely swore him out of the service.
It was then that Martin reached out a hand to his elder brother. There were really just the two brothers; and back of them—as there is, somewhere, back of every railroad man—a mother. No father—not generally; just a mother. A quiet, sombre little woman in a shawl and a bonnet of no special shape or size—just a shawl and a bonnet, that's all. Anyhow, the Duffy boys' mother was that way, and there's a lot more like her. I don't know what gets the fathers; maybe, very often, the scrap. But there's almost always, somewhere, a mother. So after Martin began to make a record, to help his mother and his brother both, he spoke for Bob. Callahan didn't hesitate or jolly him as he used to do with a good many. He thought the company couldn't have too many of the Duffy kind; so he said, "Yes, sure." And Bob Duffy was put at work—same thing exactly: carrying messages, reading hair-destroyers and blowing his salary on pie.
But pie acts queer. Sometimes it makes a man's head solid and his heart big; then again it makes a man's head big and his heart solid. I'm not saying anything more now except that pie certainly acts different.
Bob Duffy was taller than Martin and I would repeat, handsomer; but I can't, because Martin had absolutely no basis of beauty to start with. He was parchment-like and palish from sitting night after night and night after night over a sounder. Never sick a day in his life; but always over the sounder until, sleeping or waking, resting or working, the current purred and purred through his great little head like a familiarity taking old tomcat. He could guess more off a wire than most men could catch after the whole thing had tumbled in.
So up and up ladder he went. Messenger, operator—up to assistant despatcher, up to a regular trick despatcher. Up to the orders and signing the J. M. C., the letters that stood for our superintendent's name and honor. Up to the trains and their movements, up to the lives, then CHIEF!—with the honor of the division all clutched in Martin Duffy's three quick right fingers on the key and his three quick left fingers on the pen at the same instant scratching orders across the clip. Talk about ambidexterity—Martin didn't know what it would be like to use one hand at a time. If Martin Duffy said right, trains went right. If he said wrong, trains went wrong. But Martin never said the wrong; he said only the right. Giddings knows; he copied for him long enough. Giddings and plenty more of them can tell all about Martin Duffy.