“How is that?” inquired the major.
“It will take three switches to turn her. First run a track round a curve to the right, until it comes to a right angle with the main line. Then run another track on the reverse curve till it strikes the main line again, a few rods from the point where the first track leaves it.”
“I don’t understand it.”
“I will explain it when we stop, sir. It will not take long to lay it down, and when it is no longer wanted it can be taken up, and put down in another place.”
At Spangleport, where we stopped, I made a diagram on a piece of paper, to illustrate my plan; and here is a copy of my drawing. The perpendicular lines are the main track. The dummy was to be switched off at the lowest part of the diagram, and run on the curve till it had passed a switch on the right. Then it was to be switched on the upper curve, and run back till it passed the switch on the main line, which being shifted, the car having been turned entirely round, it runs back on the perpendicular lines between the curves.
Major Toppleton was satisfied with the scheme, directed that the switches should be brought up, and the work was commenced at once by the mechanics. All the boys but two were employed in laying down more track; but I am sorry to say they grumbled fiercely, for they wanted to have some fun with the dummy. Higgins was still to serve as conductor, and the other student who had been excepted from hard labor was one of the regularly appointed engineers of the road. His name was Faxon. He had some taste for mechanics, and had distinguished himself in school by making a fine diagram of the steam-engine on the blackboard. He was to run with me on the dummy, and learn to manage the engine. I was directed to post him up, as well as I could, and to permit him to take an active part in running the machine.
I was not particularly pleased with the idea of an apprentice in the engine-room with me, for if the fellow had any “gumption” he would soon be able to take my place, and I might be discharged whenever it was convenient. But a second thought assured me that my fears were mean and unworthy; that I could never succeed in making myself useful by keeping others in ignorance. The students were sent to the Institute to learn, and the railroad was a part of their means of instruction. I had no right to be selfish.
We ran down to the wharf in Spangleport, for the road was built half a mile beyond the village, when Higgins shouted, “All aboard for Middleport!” We had quite a crowd of Spangleporters as passengers, and we ran our trips regularly till five o’clock, to the great gratification of the people of both places, when the gentlemanly conductor declined to receive any more who expected to return, as the half-past five car up would be a construction train. Mr. Higgins talked very glibly and professionally by this time, and imitated all the gentlemanly conductors he had ever seen.
Faxon was a very good fellow, though he cherished a bitter antipathy against the Wimpletonians, and everything connected with them. He was an ardent admirer of Major Toppleton, and particularly of Major Toppleton’s eldest daughter, for which I did not like him any the less, strange as it may appear after the developments of the last chapter.