CHAPTER XX.
Uncle Ike did not get up very early, on account of a little pain in one of his hind legs, as he expressed it, a rheumatic pain that he had almost come to believe, as the pension agent had often suggested, was caused by his service in the army thirty-five years ago. The pension agent, who desired to have the honor of securing a pension for the old man, had asked him to try and remember if he was not exposed to a sudden draft, some time in the army, which might have caused him to take cold, and thus sow the seeds of rheumatism in his system, which had lain dormant all these years and finally appeared in his legs. The old man had thought it over, and remembered hundreds of occasions when he was soaked through with icy water, and had slept on the wet ground, and gone hungry and taken cold, but he realized that he had taken no more colds in the army than he had at home, and he could not see how he could swear that a chill he received thirty-five years ago could have anything to do with his present aches, and though he knew thousands of the old boys were receiving pensions, that were no worse off than he was, he had told the pension agent that he need not apply for a pension for his pain in the knee. He said he felt that he might just as well apply for a pension on account of inheriting rheumatism from an uncle who fought in the Mexican war, and he would wait until the government did not insist on a veteran having such an abnormal memory about sneezing during the war, as a basis for pension claims, and when it got so a pension would come to a soldier by simply looking up his record, and examining his physical condition, he would take a pension. The old man had heard a peculiar clicking down in the sitting room, all the morning, while he was dressing, and he wondered what it was. As he limped into the sitting room, with his dressing-gown on, and began to round up his shaving utensils, preparatory to his morning shave, he found the red-headed boy in his night shirt, sitting at a table with an old telegraph instrument that looked as though it had been picked out of a scrap-pile, and the boy was ticking away for dear life, his hair standing on end, his brow corrugated, and his eyes glaring.
“What dum foolishness you got on hand now?” asked the old man, as he set a cup of hot water on the mantel, and began to mix up the lather. “What you ticking away on that contrivance for, and looking wise?”
“This is a telegraph office,” said the boy, as he stopped operations long enough to draw his cold bare feet up under him, and pulled his night shirt down to cover his knees. “I am learning to telegraph, and am going into training for president of a railroad. Did you see in the papers the other day that Mr. Earling was elected president of a railroad, and did you know that he started in as a telegraph operator and a poor boy, with hair the color of tow? They used to call him Tow-Head.”
“Yes, I read about that,” said Uncle Ike, as he looked in the glass to see if the lather was all right on his face, and began to strop his razor. “I knew that boy when he was telegraphing. But he knew what all those sounds meant. You just keep ticking away, and don't know one tick from another.”
“Yes, I do,” said the boy, as he smashed away at the key. “That long sound, and the short one, and the one about half as long as the long one—that spells d-a-m, dam.”
“Well, what do you commence your education spelling out cuss words for?” asked the old man, as he raked the razor down one side of his face, pulling his mouth around to one side so it looked like the mouth of a red-horse fish. “Anybody would think you were in training for one of these railroad superintendents who swear at the men so their hair will stand, and then swear at them because they don't get their hair cut. The railroad presidents and general managers nowadays don't swear a blue streak, and keep the men guessing whether they will get discharged for talking back. This man Earling never swore a half a string in his life, and in thirty years of railroading he never spoke a cross word to a living soul, and his brow was never corrugated as much as yours has been spelling out that word dam. Got any idea what railroad you will be president of?” and the old man wiped his razor, stropped it on the palm of his hand, put it in a case, and went to a washbowl to wash the soap off his face.
“Well, I thought I would start in on some narrow-gauge railroad, and work up gradually for a year or two, and finally take charge of one of those Eastern roads, where I can have a private car, and travel all over the country for nothing. As quick as I get this telegraph business down fine I shall apply for a position of train dispatcher, and then jump right along up. Uncle Ike, you will never have to pay a cent on my railroad. I will have a caboose fixed up for you, with guns and dogs, and you can hunt and fish all your life, with a nigger to cook for you, and a porter to put on your bait, and another nigger chambermaid to make up your bed, and I will wire them from the general office to sidetrack you, and pick you up, and all that.”