From what I could gather in casual conversation with such bureaus of information as were available at Middleton its trains ran anywhere from twenty-seven hours to a year and six months late. I will say on behalf of its management, however, that after trying it once I concluded that it was a miracle it ran at all. Three or four times in the course of my waiting I decided to give up the quest of Blue Mountain altogether and to return to Memphis; but hope has always sprung eternal in my breast, and each resolution to quit the game was superseded by some kind of optimistic spiritual reassurance that held me true to my obligations.
Ultimately my optimism was justified, and a panting little combination of whirring wheels and iron rust wheezed into view, dragging a passenger car of I should say the vintage of 1852, and a shamefully big and modern freight car after it. A Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Locomotives would have had everybody connected with the institution indicted then and there, and I was again strongly inclined to give up my effort to get through. It seemed the very height of inhumanity to ask that poor little engine to carry my added weight. I should have much preferred to lift it tenderly in my arms from the track, and put it into the freight car, and pull the train to Blue Mountain myself; at any rate, that seemed the most reasonable and the only really kind thing to do at the moment.
Nevertheless I boarded the train, having first invested fifty cents in twenty-fours' worth of postal card accident insurance at the ticket office window and mailed it to my executors. In a couple of hours we were sliding and bumping down grade through an oozy morass over tracks ballasted with something having the consistency of oatmeal mush liberally diluted with skim milk. We slid over the first half-mile in about fifteen seconds, thanks to the weight of that shameless freight car at the rear, which pushed the rest of us along at a terrific rate of speed; but things were averaged up when we came to an upgrade, which, on a rough estimate, I should say we accomplished at the rate of about a mile a week. After awhile the conductor appeared—a nice, genial, kindly soul, who inspired me with a confidence I had not yet managed to acquire in the road itself. He was so smiling and serenely unaffected by what loomed dark as dangers to me that I was soon feeling rather ashamed of myself for being so full of coward fears, and it was not long before in my mind I was singing those beautiful lines of Browning:
The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world!
And as I was humming this comforting assurance to myself there broke upon the silence of the car the following colloquy:
"Howdy, Sam!" this from a fellow traveler sprawled comfortably in the seat just back of me.
"A Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Locomotives would have had them indicted then and there."
"Howdy, Jim!" this from the smiling conductor.
"How long you been with this hyere road, Sam?" asked the fellow traveler.