Books Should Be Free Loyal Books Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads |
|
Held for Orders Being Stories of Railroad Life By: Frank H. Spearman (1859-1937) |
---|
![]()
Being Stories of Railroad Life By Frank H. Spearman
Illustrations by
JAY HAMBIDGE New York
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & COMPANY
MCMI COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY S. S. MCCLURE CO.
1901, BY MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. First impression, October, 1901 Second impression, November, 1901 To
John Francis Cordeal
[Illustration: Shockley]
Contents
THE SWITCHMAN'S STORY SHOCKLEY THE WIPER'S STORY HOW MCGRATH GOT AN ENGINE THE ROADMASTER'S STORY THE SPIDER WATER THE STRIKER'S STORY MCTERZA THE DESPATCHER'S STORY THE LAST ORDER THE NIGHTMAN'S STORY BULLHEAD THE MASTER MECHANIC'S STORY DELAROO THE OPERATOR'S STORY DE MOLAY FOUR THE TRAINMASTER'S STORY OF THE OLD GUARD THE YELLOW MAIL STORY JIMMIE THE WIND
Illustrations
Shockley Chris Cooney Hailey McTerza Old Man Nicholson Dave Hawk Jimmie the Wind
Held for Orders
The Switchman's Story SHOCKLEY
"He's rather a bad lot, I guess," wrote Bucks to Callahan, "but I am
satisfied of one thing you can't run that yard with a Sunday school
superintendent. He won't make you any trouble unless he gets to
drinking. If that happens, don't have any words with him ." Bucks
underscored three times. "Simply crawl into a cyclone cellar and wire
me. Sending you eighteen loads of steel to night, and six cars of ties.
Blair reports section 10 ready for track layers and Mear's outfit moving
into the Palisade CaƱon. Push the stuff to the front." It was getting dark, and Callahan sat in that part of the Benkleton
depot he called the office, pulling at a muddy root that went
unaccountably hot in sudden flashes. He took the pipe from his mouth,
leaving his foot on the table, and looked at the bowl resentfully,
wondering again if there could be powder in that infernal tobacco of
Rubedo's. The mouthpiece he eyed as a desperate man might ponder a final
shift. The pipe had originally come from God's Country, with a Beautiful Amber
Mouthpiece, and a Beautiful Bowl; but it was a present from his sister
and had been bought at a dry goods store. Once when thinking or, if you
please, when not thinking Callahan had held a lighted match to the
Beautiful Amber Mouthpiece instead of to the tobacco, and in the fire
that ensued they had hard work to save the depot. Callahan never wrote his sister about it; he thought only about buying
pipes at dry goods stores, and about being, when they exploded, a
thousand miles from the man who sold them. There was plenty in that to
think about. What he now brought his teeth reluctantly together on was
part of the rubber tube of a dismantled atomizer; in happier
post Christmas days a toilet fixture. But Callahan had abandoned the use
of bay rum after shaving. His razor had gone to the scrap and on Sunday
mornings he merely ran a pair of scissors over the high joints for
Callahan was railroading and on the front. After losing the mouthpiece he would have been completely in the air but
for little Chris Oxen. Chris was Callahan's section gang. His name was
once Ochsner, but that wasn't in Benkleton. Callahan was hurried when he
made up the pay roll and put it Oxen, as being better United States. I
say United States because Callahan said United States, in preference to
English. Chris had been in America only three years; but he had been in Russia
three hundred, and in that time had learned many ways of getting
something out of nothing. When the red haired despatcher after the
explosion cast away with bitterness the remains of the pipe, Chris
picked it up and by judicious action on the atomizer figured out a new
mouthpiece no worse than the original, for while the second, like the
first, was of rubber, it was not of the explosive variety. Chris presented the remodelled root to Callahan as a surprise; Callahan,
in a burst of gratitude, promoted him on the spot: he made little Chris
foreman. It didn't bring any advance in pay but there was the honor... Continue reading book >>
|
eBook Downloads | |
---|---|
ePUB eBook • iBooks for iPhone and iPad • Nook • Sony Reader |
Kindle eBook • Mobi file format for Kindle |
Read eBook • Load eBook in browser |
Text File eBook • Computers • Windows • Mac |
Review this book |
---|