For about five minutes the despatcher had been calling me for orders, and in a trembling voice I asked them to let me answer and take the order. "Cert," said one of them, who appeared to be the leader, "go on and take the order, and then take a drink with us."
By the dim light of only that lantern, with my order pad on a table covered with broken glass, and smattered with pie, I finally copied the order, but it was about the worst attempt I had ever made; and the conductor remarked when he signed it, that it would take a Philadelphia lawyer to read it. The cow-punchers, however, from that time on were very good friends of mine, and many a pleasant Sunday did I spend on their ranches. They afterwards told me that Bob Wolfe had put them up to their midnight visit in order to frighten me. They certainly succeeded. My service at Herron was not very profitable, the road being in the hands of receivers, and for four months none of us received a cent of wages. The road was called the "International & Great Northern," but we facetiously dubbed it the "Independent & Got Nothing."
Some months after this I was transferred down to the southern division, and made night operator at Mankato. This was really about the best position I had yet struck: good hours, plenty of work and a fine office to do it in, and eighty dollars a month. The agent and day man were both fine fellows, and there was no chore work around the station—a baggage smasher did that. The despatchers up in "DS" office were pleasant to work with and as competent a lot of men as ever touched a key. I had never met any of them when I first took the office, though of course I soon knew their names, and the following incident will disclose how and under what unusual circumstances I formed the acquaintance of one of them, Fred De Armand, the second trick man.
About four weeks after I took the Mankato office, engine 333, pulling a through livestock freight north, broke a parallel rod, and besides cutting the engineer into mince-meat, caused a great wreck. This took place about two miles and a half north of Mankato. The hind man came back and reported it, and being off duty, I caught up a pocket instrument and some wire, and jumping on a velocipede, was soon at the wreck. I cut in an office in short order, and "DS" soon knew exactly how matters stood. One passenger train south was tied up just beyond the wreck, and in about an hour and a half the wrecker appeared in charge of the trainmaster. I observed a young man twenty-eight or thirty years of age standing around looking on, and once when I was near him I noticed that he stammered very badly.
I carefully avoided saying anything to that young man, because, I, too, at times, had a rather bad impediment in my speech. It asserted itself especially when I heard any one else stutter, or when the weather was going to change; the men who knew me well said they could always foretell a storm by my inability to talk. From my own experience, however, I knew that when a stammerer heard another man stammer, he imagined that he was being made fun of, and all the fight in him came at once to the surface; and as this young man was about twice my size, I did my best to keep away from him. But in a few moments he came over to where I was and said to me, "A-a-a-sk 'DS' t-t-t-t-o s-s-s-end out m-m-m-y r-r-ain c-c-c-c-oat on th-th-th-irteen." Every other word was followed by a whistle.
My great help in stammering was to kick with my right foot. I knew what was coming, and tried my best to avert the trouble. I drew in a long breath and said: "Who sh-sh-sh-all I s-s-s-ay y-y-y-ou are?" and my right foot was doing great execution. True to its barometrical functions, my throat was predicting a storm. It came.
He looked at me for a second, grew red in the face, then catching me by the collar, gave me a yank, that made me see forty stars, and said, "B-b-b-last you! wh-wh-at d-d-o y-y-ou m-mean b-b-y m-mocking me? I'll sm-sm-ash y-y-our b-b-b-lamed r-r-ed head.'"
Speech left me entirely then, and I am afraid I would have been most beautifully thumped, had not Sanders, the trainmaster, come over and stopped him. He called him "De Armand," and I then knew he was the second trick despatcher. After many efforts De Armand told Sanders how I had mocked him. Sanders didn't know me and the war clouds began to gather again; but Johnson, the conductor of the wrecker, came over and said, "Hold on there, De Armand, that kid ain't mocking you; he stammers so bad at times that he kicks a hole in the floor. Why, I have seen him start to say something to my engineer pulling out of Mankato, and he would finish it just as the caboose went by, and we had some forty cars in the train at that."
At this a smile broke over De Armand's face, and he grasped my hand and said, "Excuse m-m-m-e k-k-id; but y-y-you k-k-know how it is y-y-yourself." You may well believe that I did know.
One night, shortly after this, I was repeating an order to De Armand, and in the middle of it I broke myself very badly. He opened his key, and said, "Kick, you devil, kick!" And I got the merry ha-ha from up and down the line. But in giving me a message a little while after he flew the track, and I instantly opened up and said, "Whistle, you tarrier, whistle!" Maybe he didn't get it back.