Mr. Carnegie's hero medals are often bestowed, and worthily, upon men who on sudden impulse have performed some deed of heroism and self-sacrifice for the benefit of others; but I have yet to hear of one of these desirable possessions being bestowed upon the flagman who, in the face of a raging blizzard, at midnight, the thermometer at zero, leaves the comparative comfort of the rear car, and walks, whistling for company, back some four or five hundred yards along the icy track, and stands there with his red lantern in hand to warn a possibly advancing train behind of danger ahead.
When the ice-incased wires are down, and the signal and switch towers are out of commission because of the rampageous elements, how many of us who lie comfortably asleep in the warm berths of our stalled trains give so much as a thought to the man outside in the freezing cold of the night, keeping the switches clear that we may proceed, or to the flagman at the rear, shelterless before the storm, who stands between us and disaster? Most of us, I fancy, do not think of them at all, and I fear that many of us so occupy ourselves with self-sympathy on these occasions that we find no words of commendation in our hearts for anybody connected with the whole railway system; but rather words of condemnation for that system and everybody connected with it, from the innocent stockholder looking for dividends, all the way down to those poor devils who have forgotten under the stress of demoralizing conditions to fill the water tanks that we may drink and get our fair share of the nation's supply of typhoid germs.
For myself, I can truthfully say that the remark of a railway official made to me many years ago in response to one of my complaints has of late years gathered considerable force and significance. This gentleman was a neighbor of mine, and one Christmas he presented me with an annual pass on the Hudson River Railroad. It was a delightful gift, and I used it with enthusiasm. One morning, however, as he and I sat together on a local train that had in some mysterious way managed to lose four hours on a thirty-minute run, I turned to him and said:
"Charlie, sometimes I wish I had never accepted that confounded old pass of yours. I've bartered my freedom of speech for a beggarly account of empty minutes. If it wasn't for that blankety-blank pass, I could tell you what I think of your blinkety-blink old road. Here we are four hours late on a thirty-minute run!"
"Why, my dear boy," he replied with an amiable smile, "you are dingety-dinged lucky to get in at all!"
Individually I have experienced so much kindliness and courtesy at the hands of the personnel of our railroads in all parts of the United States that I sometimes get real satisfaction out of sharing with them the discomforts of travel. I have discovered without half trying that there are profound depths of friendliness in them which need to be given only half a chance to manifest themselves. Rarely indeed have I met with discourtesy at their hands, and many a weary hour has been cheered by their native wit. For the most part, naturally, my contact has been with the station agent and the conductor—and the Pullman porter.
While I deplore the abuses of tipping in this and other countries, I have rarely grudged the Pullman porter his well earned extra quarter. Perhaps the general run of us have not had the time, nor the inclination, to acquaint ourselves with the difficulties of the Pullman porter's job. We don't realize that with a car full of people ten passengers will want the car cooled off, ten others will want a little more heat, five will complain that there is too much air, five others will complain that there is too little; and poor Rastus, ground between the two millstones of complaint, has to make a show of pleasing everybody. He above all others would be justified in announcing as his favorite poem those fine old lines:
As a rule a man's a fool:
When it's hot he wants it cool;
When it's cool he wants it hot—
Always wanting what is not.
I recall one fine old darky once on a train running into Cleveland, who was very unhappy over a complaint of mine that, with a car crowded to the limit with women and children, some cigarette fiend had vitiated what little air there was in the car by smoking in his berth. I was awakened at three o'clock in the morning by the oppressive odor of burning paper and near-perique. There is no mistaking the origin of that aromatic nuisance, and my gorge rose at the boorish lack of consideration that the smoker showed for the comfort and convenience of his fellow travelers. I pressed the button alongside my berth, and a moment later the porter was peering in at me through the curtains.
"Look here, John," said I in a stage whisper, "this is a little too much! Somebody in this car is smoking cigarettes, and I think it's a condemned outrage. With all these ladies on board it seems to me that you ought to insist that the man who can't restrain his passion for cigarettes should get off at the next stop and take the first cattle car he finds running to where he thinks he is going."