“There’s nothing to prevent that engineer from playing ‘Yankee Doodle’ on his whistle if he wants to. Haven’t you often lain awake at night listening to the blasts of the locomotives? You can tell when an engineer is ruffled, when he starts behind time out of the yard, and knows he must be extra alert that night. His toot is sharp and impatient. Or you can tell an engineer coming home from his run. His whistle fairly sighs his own contentment.”
“La, Gordon,” some one yawned, “you’re a poetic soul!”
“Well, I believe in that engineer,” he defended. “Next time I go down to the village I’m going to find out who blows that thing and why he does it.”
He did go down to the village and he did learn the secret of the whistle. It made a neat little story. The whistle was a code signal, of a surety, and of precisely the sort that Gordon figured it was. He knew his Virginia.
A fellow named George Roberts was the engineer of that freight, and his imitation of “Annie Laurie” was truly a signal—to a sweetheart of his. Rough devil at one time, this man Roberts, a tearing drinker and fighter, he was fast on the way to ruin and discharge, when he fell in love with this girl and braced up. Now every time he passed the little house where she lived he tooted his whistle like that in salutation.
“To let her know he’s safe,” Gordon finished.
Of course we charged him with making it up, but in the end we came to believe him. Every day for four weeks that whistle blew, always in the same way, always in the same place, and always on the dot. And somehow it had a sobering and softening effect upon the crowd of woodsmen that we were. The men quarreled less frequently, I noticed, were more considerate and helpful to each other. I swear we all felt the influence of that engineer. I’ll wager every man jack of us meant on going home to be a bit the more thoughtful to the wife. It cheered us all, that little touch of honest romance. The world seemed a bit the better for it. We even took to timing our supper not by Jemima’s bell but by George Roberts’ whistle.
Then another strange thing happened. The signal ceased.
The first time we missed it we could scarcely believe our ears. But on the second day it was silent, and the next. At the right time the train crossed the notch, but no puffs came from the engine, no sound from the whistle.
It gave us a drop. The world was as drab as ever. The cynics, of course, spoke up at once.