One wintry evening just at dusk he caught, passing over the wire, word that the Twentieth Century Limited was two hours behind time. What had retarded her he did not learn, but he knew wherein his duty lay.
He lit his lantern, sharpened a pencil, and got out a notebook, then sat him down to bide his time. Ten minutes before the belated Limited was due to whiz past he left the station, walked eastward along the tracks a quarter of a mile and posted himself between the rails.
Soon the headlight hove into sight. In an effort to make up the precious lost minutes the engineer was driving his locomotive at tremendous speed. Suddenly far ahead he saw the dancing signal of a lantern. He gave her the brakes; he gave her the sand. Passengers in the coaches behind were slammed up against the end bulkheads of their berths. With sparks flying from her wheels, the snorting mogul stopped not fifty feet distant from where the youth stood. The engineer and his fireman dropped down from the cab and ran forward, sputtering questions.
The station-agent stilled them with an authoritative gesture. He put down his lantern on the right-of-way, braced his pad in the crook of his elbow, poised his pencil ready to record their answers and said briskly:
“Now then, boys, tell me—what detained you?”
§ 211 The Curfew in Nebraska
Of course, in these days, when no community is so small or so obscure or so old-fashioned that it lacks service stations and jazz orchestras and schemes for a proposed Civic Center, this story no longer could be made to apply in any American town.
As the tale runs, a man who had been born and reared in a remote Nebraska country-seat moved to New York where he succeeded in business. Years later a friend from his former home came to see him. Naturally, talk drifted back to childhood scenes and memories.
“I guess the old town hasn’t changed much, has it, Jim?” asked the New Yorker.
“Not much,” said Jim. “She’s pretty much the same.”