"They act as if we had nothing to do but just watch out for 'em," he went on, getting under way again. "They got off scot-free this time, but imagine what old Seven-Double-Seven would have done to 'em if this had been my regular run! Forty miles an hour on schedule—and where would they be now?
"It's the same old story, day after day—boys riding bicycles down the tracks, when the road's ten times smoother and a million times as safe! Boys playing on the turntables and getting crippled for life, one by one!
"They'll run like mad to get across the track ahead of a fast train—and then stand and watch it go through! I ought to know—I did it myself when I was a boy, but little I knew then of the way it wrecks an engineer's nerves!
"They flip the cars and try to imitate the brakemen without the least idea of how many thousands of brakemen have lost their lives just that way. They crawl under cars, instead of waiting or going around. Why, Colonel, the railroads kill thousands and thousands of people every year—you know the figures—dozens every day, week in and week out. And somebody's badly hurt on the railroads every three minutes or less—and a third of them are boys and girls and little children! That's what I can't stand—the little folks getting hurt and getting killed, when just a bit of common sense would save them! Oh, if their fathers and mothers had any idea—"
The big engineer choked up for a moment. "Even on the trains," he added, "when they're safe inside the cars, they get hurt. I'm not the only one that worries on my run—ask the conductor. He'll tell you how they run up and down the aisle, till a sudden jar of the brakes throws 'em against a seat iron or into the other passengers. They get out into the vestibules, which is against the rules, and when the train takes a sudden curve they get smashed up."
Three minutes later he slowed down for the twins to watch the fast mail thunder past. It was near a village crossing, and a little group of boys stood waiting. As No. 777 came to a stop, the twins saw that most of the boys had stones in their hands.
On came the fast mail, tearing past the little village as if it were not even on the map. The mail cars—the smoker—the long rows of glass windows, a head beside each—
Smash! The flying splinters of glass told of one stone that had found its mark. The boys ran like scared cats around the corner into a lumber yard.
"Little cowards!" The fireman glared angrily after them. "They may have killed somebody on that train—they don't know!"
"Rub your buttons!" whispered Sure Pop, whose eyes were still fixed on the fast mail, now disappearing in a cloud of smoke and dust.