CHAPTER XVI
A GENERAL STRIKE—A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER FOR A DAY
During the ensuing spring, one of those spasmodic waves of strikes passed over the country. Some northern road that wasn't earning enough money to pay the interest on its bonds, cut down the salaries of some of its employees, and they went out. Then the "sympathy" idea was worked to the full limit, and gradually other roads were tied up. We had hopes it would escape us, but one fine day we awoke to find our road tied up good and hard. The conductors and brakemen went first, and a few days later they were followed by the engineers and firemen. That completed the business and we were up against it tighter than a brick. Our men hadn't the shadow of a grievance against the company, and were not in full sympathy with the strike, but their obligation to their unions was too strong for them to resist.
It placed us in a pretty bad fix because just at this time we had a yard full of freight, a good deal of it perishable, and it was imperative that it should be moved at once or the company would be out a good many dollars. The roundhouse men and a few hostlers were still working, so it was an easy thing to get a yard engine out. Bennett, myself, Burns, the second trick man, and Mr. Hebron, the division superintendent, went down in the yard to do the switching. There were twenty-three cars of Texas livestock and California fruit waiting for a train out, and the drovers were becoming impatient, because they wanted to get up to Chicago to take advantage of a big bulge in the market.
I soon found that standing up in the bay window of an office, watching the switchmen do the yard work and doing it yourself, were two entirely different propositions. When I first went in between two cars to make a coupling, I thought my time had come for sure. I fixed the link and pin in one car, and then ran down to the next and fixed the pin there. The engine was backing slowly, but when I turned around, it looked as if it had the speed of an overland "flyer." I watched carefully, raised and guided the link in the opposite draw head, and then dropped the pin. Those two cars came together like the crack of doom, and I shut my eyes and jumped back, imagining that I had been crushed to death, in fact, I could feel that my right hand was mashed to a pulp. But it was a false alarm; it wasn't. I had made the coupling without a scratch to myself, and it wasn't long before I became bolder, and jumped on and off of the foot-boards and brake-beams like any other lunatic. That all four of us were not killed is nothing short of miracle.
By a dint of hard work we succeeded in getting a train made up for Chaminade, and all that was now needed was an engine and crew. There was a large and very interested crowd of men standing around watching us, and many a merry ha-ha we received from them for our crude efforts. Engine 341 was hooked on, and we were all ready for the start. Burns was going to play conductor, Bennett was to be the hind man, while I was to ride ahead. But where were the engineer and fireman? Mr. Hebron had counted on a non-union engineer to pull the train, and a wiper to do the firing, but just as we expected them to appear, we found that some of the strikers had succeeded in talking them over to their side. To make matters worse the roundhouse men and the hostlers caught the fever, and out they went. Mr. Hebron was in a great pickle, but he didn't want to acknowledge that he was beaten so he stood around hanging on in hopes something would turn up to relieve the strain.
Now, it had occurred to me that I could run that engine. When I was young and fresh in the railroad business, I had spent much of my spare time riding around on switch engines, and once in a while I had taken a run out over the road with an engineer who had a friendly interest in me. One man, old Tom Robinson, who pulled a fast freight, had been particularly kind to me, and on one occasion I had taken a few days' lay off, and gone out and back one whole trip with him. Being of an inquisitive turn of mind, I asked him a great many questions about gauges, valves, oil cups, eccentrics, injectors, etc., and whenever he would go down under his engine, I always paid the closest attention to what he did. I used to ride on the right hand side of the cab with him, and occasionally he would allow me to feel the throttle for a few minutes. Thus, when I was a little older, I could run an engine quite well. I knew the oil cups, could work the injector, knew enough to open and close the cylinder cocks, could toot the whistle and ring the bell like an old timer, and had a pretty fair idea, generally speaking, of the machine. Having all these things in mind, I approached Mr. Hebron, as he stood cogitating upon his ill-luck, and said, "Mr. Hebron, I'll run this train into Chaminade if you will only get some one to keep the engine hot."
"You," said Hebron, "you are a despatcher; what the devil do you know about running a locomotive?"
I told him I might not know much, but if he would say the word I would get those twenty-three cars into Chaminade, or know the reason why. He looked at me for a minute, asked me a few questions about what I knew of an engine and then said,