Then she heard the whistles of a locomotive in the west, and looking in that direction she beheld another train sweeping down the track to meet the one coming from the east.
There was only a single track. One of the trains must pull into a switch, or there would be a collision. The trainmen could not see around the curve, and were not aware of the other train’s existence. She rushed to the brow of the hill where she could look down upon the track and took off her skirt and waved it aloft to signal the on-coming trains. Neither engineer saw her, and the trains came rushing onward to their inevitable doom. As the train from the east passed where she stood she saw a man sitting on the bumpers between two red cars. He looked up and waved his hand to her. She recognized the face—it was her son Edward!
Then came the shrill whistles of the two locomotives. The engineers had discovered their danger when too late to save the trains. She stood fascinated and watched the two iron monsters come together with an awful crash. They stood up on end like two angry animals in deadly combat, and the sound of crashing, tumbling cars drowned the noise of the escaping steam. The two locomotives tumbled over, tearing and wrenching iron bars from each other as they fell and then lay with heads together like two giants of the woods who had fought to the death and lay with tooth and claws imbedded in each other’s body. A few freight cars that were standing on end fell over with a crashing sound, a cloud of dust arose from the awful wreck, a hissing sound of escaping steam continued for a few minutes, and then all was still. The hand of death seemed to grasp trains and crews, and silence settled down with an awful significance. She felt herself fainting, just as the moans and cries of human beings in distress reached her ears.
When she came to and looked down upon the wreck it was night, but lanterns flitted here and there on both sides of the dead engines, and a voice asked: “Have we found all the men belonging to the ill-fated crews?” and a voice just below where she stood replied: “Yes, all of the two crews, and the body of a hobo besides—they are all dead but two brakemen, and they are still unconscious.”
She looked down the embankment and saw the dead stretched out upon the ground and at the east end of the line she recognized her son Edward—dead and covered with his own blood.
She screamed aloud and her daughter came into the room to see what was the cause of her alarm. That was a year ago. Her boy has never written since, and she firmly believes her Edward was killed just as she saw in her dream. If he is still alive somewhere in the world, think of the joy he could send her in just a short letter—just enough to show her that he is still alive. Boys, write to your mother. She may be dreaming of you.
A WASTED LIFE
Across the river from where I now live stands the old, old house where the man of the wasted life was born. I did not know him as a boy, but the old people of the neighborhood spoke of him as the handsomest boy on the McElhattan side, and the place was noted for handsome people. He was a full grown man when I first saw him, while I was yet a boy. How handsome he was, standing six feet tall, with eyes and hair coal black and a face that showed the brain force seething behind the beautiful mask.
His discontent was transparent to every reader of the human face. Even the droop of his dark mustache reminded one of the weeping willow branches hanging disconsolate over the tomb where sleeps the beloved dead.