"I don't know anybody better than Jack-in-the-Box," said Ned. "Of course he knows all about railroads."
"Of course he does," said I, "and he'll be glad to help us. Jack-in-the-Box is the very one!"
CHAPTER IV.
JACK-IN-THE-BOX.
The box was a red box, about five feet square and eight feet high, with a pointed top. Jack was about five feet nine inches high, with a brown beard and mustache and dark hazel eyes, and might have been twenty-six years old, possibly older. When he was in the box, he wore a blue blouse and dark trousers and a small cloth cap. The only time I ever saw him away from the box was on Sundays, when he always came to the Presbyterian Church, and sat in pew No. 79. One of the great pillars that supported the gallery was planted in this pew, and spoiled nearly the whole of it; but there was a comfortable seat for one at the outer end, and Jack had that seat. The box had two small square windows on opposite sides. On another side was a door, with 248 over it. The fourth side was covered in summer with morning-glory vines, planted by Jack, and trained to run up on strings. A stove-pipe about as large as your arm stuck out at the top. When Jack looked out at one of his windows, he looked up the railroad; when he looked out at the other, he looked down the railroad; when he stepped out of his door, he stood beside the track, and on those occasions he generally had in his hand either a red flag or a red lantern.
Close beside the box rose a tall, heavy pole, with a cross-piece on the top and short iron rods stuck through it at intervals all the way up. A rope passed over pulleys in the ends of the cross-piece, and Jack used to hoist sometimes three white balls, sometimes two red balls, at night tying on white or red lanterns below the balls.
To us boys, Jack was a delightful character, in an enviable situation, but to older people he was a mystery. I remember one day I was walking with Father, when Mr. Briggs joined us, and as we came in sight of the box, Jack was rolling up his flag, a train having just gone by.
"What do you make of that young man?" said Mr. Briggs.
"I don't know what to make of him," said Father. "He is evidently not the sort of man they generally have in those positions. You can tell by his speech and manner, and his whole appearance, that he is an educated man and a gentleman."