“I’m not a rich man’s son, and I can’t afford to have such playthings. But I suppose I must get one, if I run on this dummy.”
“I’ll lend you mine for to-day, Wolf.”
“Thank you. I want to time the running, so as to know where we are,” I answered, taking the watch, and attaching the chain to my vest. “It is nearly twelve o’clock, and we will start soon.”
“All aboard for Spangleport!” screamed Higgins, as though the announcement was intended for the people on the other side of the lake.
“Folks will understand that nothing ails your lungs, Higgins, whatever is the matter with your head,” I added, gently, to the zealous conductor. “I wouldn’t yell so. Boys always make fools of themselves by hallooing when there isn’t the least need of it.”
Higgins, in a milder tone, invited the ladies and gentlemen who were inspecting the car to step in and make the excursion to Spangleport, promising that they should return in just fifty minutes. Quite a number of them accepted the invitation; and I was about to start, when I saw a very beautiful young lady hastening towards us. She was elegantly dressed, and her movements were as graceful as those of a fawn. The “gentlemanly conductor” rang the bell for the engine to start, and the young lady, hearing it, made a motion with her sunshade for us to wait for her. I was too happy to find she was to be a passenger in the car to start without her, in spite of my laudable ambition to be “on time.”
The moment Higgins saw her, he jumped off the platform, took off his cap, bowed and scraped like a French dancing-master, and helped her up the steps. There was a glass window in the partition between the engine-room and the passenger compartment, for which at that moment I felt extremely grateful to the builder, for it enabled me to obtain an occasional glance at the beautiful young lady. I beg leave to say that this unwonted enthusiasm on my part was as surprising to myself as it will be to my readers, for I had hardly ever looked at any person of the feminine persuasion before, except my mother and sisters. I had certainly never seen any lady who attracted me so strongly, or for whom I felt so great an admiration. She was not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age; but she wore a long dress, and had a mature bearing.
Higgins conducted her to a seat, and she took possession of it as gracefully as though she had been schooled in the polite art for a whole lifetime. I could not help gazing at her, and I envied Higgins the rapture of being permitted to speak to her. She looked around, and bowed to several persons in the car, with the sweetest smile that ever lighted up a young lady’s face. I was wholly absorbed in gazing at her, and actually forgot that I was the young engineer of the Lake Shore Railroad, till the sharp snap of the bell brought me to my senses, and assured me that Higgins was not so fascinated as I was.
I was a minute behind time, and I let on the steam to make it up. I was obliged to turn my back on the beautiful being in the car, and look out for “breakers ahead” through the door and windows in the end of the engine-room; but I had the pleasing satisfaction of thinking that in running backwards from Spangleport I should face the other way.
What a fool I was! Of course I was. A young man always has a time to be a fool, just as he has to take the measles, though he seldom has it so young as I did. I did not know who the young lady was, and I did not crave any other privilege than that of simply looking at her, just as I should at a pretty picture. If she had fallen overboard, I should certainly have jumped in after her. If she had been in the claws of a lion, I should certainly have smitten the lion. If she had been in the upper story of a house on fire, I should certainly have run the risk of being singed for her sake. But she did not fall overboard, or into the claws of a lion, and she was not in a burning house; and, provoking as it was, I could not do anything for her, except turn my back to her,—and I was not sure that this was not the most agreeable service I could render her,—and run the dummy at its highest speed.