"And I can see it every night in the year for nothing. People call it lonesome up here, but I guess mighty few folks know how much company an old railroad man like me can get out of passing ingines and slow freights, and even out of the rails and ties. Anybody would think I was a paid section-boss the way I watch the road-bed about here."
"How long were you a railroad man?" asked Laurie, stopping in his thrumming.
"About twenty years," said Blundon. "But it was in the East, where railroading ain't the same as it is out here. I was in the caboose of a train that made two hundred and twenty miles, year in and year out, in four hours and forty minutes, including three stops. It was a solid train of Pullmans, and the road-bed was as smooth as a ballroom floor. I had an eighteen-thousand-dollar ingine—the Lively Sally—and when I pulled the throttle out she was just like a race-horse when he hears the starter shout 'Go!' I don't believe I ever could have quit the railroad business if the Lively Sally hadn't come to grief. But it wasn't when I was a-drivin' her. I was laid off sick, and they gave her to another man—a good enough fellow, but you can't learn the ways of an ingine in a day nor a week, any more than you can learn the ways of a woman in a day or a week. Sally used to get balky, once a year reg'lar. For about a week she'd have the jim-jams—seemed like she got tired of working, and wanted a spell of rest in the round-house. Well, the new man didn't know this, and instead of letting her have her own way, he tried to drive her, and Sally just blew her cylinder-head out for spite. And when she was helpless on the siding a long freight came along, and the switchman lost his wits, and set the switch wrong, and that eighteen-thousand-dollar beauty was crippled so she never was worth much afterward. And about that time my lungs gave out, and I had to come up here. I never cared much about an ingine after Sally. I dare say I might get a place again to run a passenger train, but I think about poor Sally, and I don't feel like going back on the old girl; so here I am, side-tracked for life at Mudhole Junction."
"It was all on account of a patent air-brake that I'm here," remarked Laurie.
"It's coming," thought Blundon.
"I am an only child," said Laurie, after a little pause, "and I had the best daddy in the world, except that he was so obstinate."
"You weren't obstinate, young feller," Blundon gravely interjected. "You were just firm. It's the other feller that's pig-headed always. Go on."
Laurie glanced up quickly, and grinned at Blundon for a moment.
"Well, perhaps I was a little obstinate too—a chip of the old block. As long as my mother lived, God bless her!"—here Laurie raised his cap reverently—"she could always make peace between us. But when she went to heaven there was nobody to do this. The first serious falling out we had was when I went to college. I took the scientific course, and apparently I didn't do much at it. But I was working like a beaver at an air-brake, and when I wasn't in the class-rooms I was down at the railroad shops studying brakes. I found out a lot about them, and I also found out that my wonderful invention wasn't any invention at all. It had been tried and discarded. My father, though, thought I was idling, and wrote me a riproaring letter. One word brought on another, until at last I walked myself out of the house after our last interview, and told my father I would never take another cent from him as long as I lived. I had a little money that my mother left me. My father said I'd come back as soon as I'd run through with what I had, and that made me mad. I knew my lungs weren't in good shape, and the doctors told me to come up here and try living in a shanty for a year. I've done it, and I'm cured, and my feelings have softened toward my father—he was a kind old dad when he had his own way—but I can't—I can't make the first advance to him."
Blundon's usual address to Laurie was, "Young feller," but on serious occasions he called him "Mr. Vane, sir."