Every Man for Himself

by Herbert Joseph Moorhouse

In this manner did Miss Cristy Lawson come to take her first ride on an engine. The night had been crowded with nerve-wracking excitement; but in the elation which she experienced over this unexpected way out of her difficulty, she felt renewed strength and confidence that surely would see her through. Half an hour ago she had been lost in a welter of despair; but she was all right now. Everything was all right now. The story would get through yet; nothing could stop it now. And, protected by the roar of the wheels, she cried a little in relief.

Just a moment of this, however. She was not ordinarily the crying kind. The furnace glare presently filled the whole cab as the fireman shovelled in more coal, and the novelty of her surroundings pressed upon her to the temporary exclusion of everything else.

Wasn't the din something awful? She had no idea that a locomotive was such a noisy place. She soon found herself getting more used to it and watched the engineer with wonder and interest. Her idea of an engineer, she found, had been formed by the illustrations in the magazines; she had pictured him in her mind as a man who sat with hand constantly on the throttle or the levers or whatever it was, bent far forward, peering keenly and steadily from beneath the visor of his greasy cap with eyes riveted unswervingly on every yard of track ahead. She was surprised, therefore, to find that this engineer seemed almost careless of attitude, leaning back in his cushioned seat, body jogging loosely to the motions of the great machine. It was only occasionally that he seemed to arouse enough interest to lean out of the window, and scarcely ever did he touch the levers in front of him. Once he actually got down from his seat and came over to the fireman's side to shout something in that grimy individual's ear, and all the while they were thundering along without any lessening of speed. What if something should appear suddenly on the track in front of them? Her heart leaped at the thought. She was sure he could not get back in time to stop, and it was all very surprising to her.

Curiously her eyes roved over all the levers and queer instruments. Certainly an engineer must have to carry a terrible lot in his head to know how to manage them. There was a little knob, for instance; if she were to give it a pull, something would happen somewhere, an explosion perhaps,—dear knows what! She watched the hand of the indicator on the boilerhead fluttering around the figure 190. She studied the liquid in the glass tubes. A little apparatus, too, that looked like a small whistle. Was it a whistle and when did they blow it? Steam was bubbling out of a joint in a pipe right at her side; the hot water dribbled on her dress once when she leaned too far over and she caught the fireman grinning at her.

She laughed light-heartedly, taking a child-like joy out of this new and thrilling experience. She could not help marvelling at the unconcern with which these men attended to their work; they were perfectly at home on this rolling engine.

Didn't it rock and jerk about, though? It was enough to tear out the rails almost, it seemed to her, and her pulses quickened at the thought that if anything should break! But it did not seem to, somehow.

The fireman's gloved hand seized the chain on the feed-door again and jerked it open. She watched him toiling with his scoop, the white glare beating upon the rugged lines of his face till it was a wonder he could stand that fierce heat. There was a funny black smudge running across his nose, and when he bent his back she saw that a buckle was missing from his overalls and he had substituted a piece of coarse twine. Was he married? If he was, why didn't his wife look after those buckles? He worked hard enough to deserve to have little things like that looked after for him. Why, she'd heard they even shovelled as much as a whole ton of coal on a single trip!

The lurch of the engine as they swung around a curve drew her attention to the track which was sweeping in upon them with dizzy continuity. Out there, ahead of the big black body of the locomotive, the funneled path of the headlight streamed away into the unknown. Far up the track the white mile-boards on the poles caught it, ran toward them, flashed at them and skipped out of sight behind. Tall weeds nodded in it as they swept past. It poured out along the wet rails, which glistened in the bright bath and let go only when the beam plunged away at a curve and went exploring in the woods or rioted across a valley into panorama on the other side.

Once a little rabbit sat in the middle of the track, staring the great light in the eye with a fascination that threatened its life. The tiny creature seemed to be paralyzed by the glare and they almost ran it down before it tore away in sudden fright and its cotton-white tuft vanished in the long grass.

But as the novelty of all this wore off, her mind reverted to the thing that she was trying to do. The speeding engine, the flying track, became merely the accessories which were carrying her nearer and nearer her goal—a telegraph operator.