it was six o’clock—the close of a perfect june day. not even the freight engines, pulling and hauling up and down the yard, with their puffs of black smoke, could darken the sky. over in the meadow, beyond the network of tracks, the bobolinks had been tumbling and bubbling all day. it was time to close shop now, and they had subsided into the long grass. in the office the assistant shipping-clerk was finishing the last bill of lading. he put it to one side and looked at his watch. a look of relief crossed his face as he replaced it and climbed down from the high stool. it had been a hard day in the bridge-water freight-office. news had come, in the early morning, of a wreck, three miles down the track—a sleeper and a freight had collided where the road curves by the stonework of the long bridge, and john had been sent down to help in looking after the freight.
it was one of the worst wrecks the road had known. no one placed the blame. those on the ground were too busy to have theories; and those at a distance had to change their theories a dozen times during the day. at noon word came that the president of the road was on his way to the scene of the accident. the news reached john as he was getting into the wrecking-car to return to the office. he paused for a flying minute, one foot on the step of the car. then he swung off, and the car moved on without him. he spent the next half hour going over the ground. he made careful notes of every detail, recalling points from memory, taking measurements, jotting down facts and figures with his swift, short fingers. when he had finished he took the next wrecking-car back, making up for lost time by lunching at his desk while he worked.
all the afternoon he had been doing the work of three men.... six o’clock. he got down from the high stool, stretching himself and rubbing his arms. in ten minutes the special would pass. he glanced out through the office window at the back of the building. high at the top of the sandy bank a bunch of clover bloomed against the sky, huge heads, with pink-and-white hearts—a kind of alfalfa—perhaps a seed from some passing freight. he had seen them, flaunting there, between hurried snatches of work, all the afternoon. he would pick them and carry them to her. but not now.... he looked again at his watch. he wanted to see the special when it passed. it would not stop, probably, but he might catch a glimpse of simeon tetlow. he had often wished he might see him, and he had often thought of his face the morning he said good-by. beneath the anger in it had been something the boy could not fathom—a kind of entreaty.... he must find some way to give him the notes he had made of the wreck. he stepped out on the platform, looking up and down the shine on the tracks. the sun, coming low across the meadow beyond the tracks, made everything beautiful. a whistle sounded. the special—at the upper bridge. in five minutes it would pass. a smile curved his lips. the sound of quick bells and puffs and wheels came pleasantly to him from the engines at work in the yard down beyond the freight-house. a long train at the left was backing in slowly. john watched it and jingled some pennies in his pockets. he was thinking of simeon tetlow, the smile still on his lips.... suddenly the smile stopped. the fingers gripped the pennies and held them fast.. .. his eye flashed along the top of the slow-moving train.—no one in sight—level tracks—the special two minutes off—the freight taking her track.... the switch, if he could make it—it was not a thought, but a swift turn of the short legs. never had they seemed to him so fat and heavy beneath him. yet they were flying over the ties as the wind sweeps a field. the short, strong body dropped itself upon the switch and hung there, gripping—a whirl of cinders and blast and roar. ... had he come fast enough?... ages passed. he lifted his head and looked back up the long tracks. the freight was still backing in slowly. the special—like an old lady who has taken the wrong crossing—was emitting a sound of dismay, a quick, high note. the wheels reversed and she came back, puffing and complaining, in little jerks.
when the train halted simeon tetlow stepped down from the platform. his hand, as it left the iron rail, trembled a little. he thrust it into the pocket of his light coat, looking up and down the tracks with stern glance. the glance fell upon john mopping his brow.
the president of the road moved toward him slowly. “what ’s up?” it was short and sharp.
john waited a minute while he mopped his brow again and replaced the handkerchief. he was thinking fast—for two. “i—i wanted to see you, sir.” one glance at the man had told him everything—the shaking hand clinched in the pocket, the quivering nerves, the dusty journey, the anxiety and fierce need of help. one more shock and the tension would give way. “i wanted to see you, sir,” he repeated quietly.
simeon was looking at him keenly, up and down. “so you stopped my special?”
john nodded. “yes, i stopped it—i guess i stopped it.” his voice almost laughed at the words. he was tugging at something in his pocket. “i wanted to give you these, sir.” he had fished out the handful of papers—old envelopes, scraps, bits of newspaper margins—covered with writing and figures. “i was down there this morning—to the wreck,” he said quickly. “things were pretty well mixed up—i thought you might like to see how they lay. i made some notes.”
“ah-h!” it was a long-drawn breath-something between a snarl and a laugh. “come inside.”
they went into the special, with her hideous decorations of plush and imitation leather. the president nodded to the seat beside a table covered with telegrams and newspapers and memoranda: “sit down.”
he seated himself opposite the boy, his elbow on the table and his head resting on the hand. beneath its shelter his swift eyes looked out, scanning the boy’s face. “well!” it was sharp and quick.
the boy smiled at the familiar note. he ran over the papers in his fingers, selecting one near the bottom. “this is the way things lay when we got there. we were first on the ground. i had a good chance to see,” he said simply.
“i ’ll warrant.” simeon growled a little, leaning toward it.
the boy moved nearer to him. “these are the sleepers—the freight lay this way, over to the left. they must have struck just as the last car left the bridge.”
“i see.” simeon reached out a hand for the paper. it trembled mistily as he bent above it. “i see.” the tone held a note of satisfaction. “what else?” he looked up quickly.
john was sorting the papers, a half-smile on his slow lips. a sense of happiness held his stubby fingers.
the president’s eyes rested on the dull face for a long minute. his hand, holding the paper, had ceased to tremble. he was resting in the strength of this body, short and sturdy and full of willing life. no one knew what that stubby-fingered boy had meant to him—what plans for the future had been cut off. the boy was to have been closer than a partner for him, closer than his own body, through the years. he was to have lived with him—shared his fortune, good and bad.... no one had guessed. he himself had not quite known—until, one day, the door closed behind the boy and he found himself sitting before a desk, trying with trembling fingers to make an entry in the ledger.... he had worried along since then as best he could.... and now he was sitting in the quiet car with the boy opposite him. the freight outside was pulling away with slow, disturbed puffs. the low sun shone through the car, and a glow of red plush lifted itself about them and filled the car with clear, rosy light.
the boy looked up. his eyes met the watching ones, and a quick light flashed into them, touching the lamps of service to flame. “this is the next one, sir.” he looked down again at the papers and held one out.
the president pushed it aside with a touch. his eyes searched the boy’s face. “tell me what happened—just now!”
“just now—!” the boy looked up, waiting, his lips half apart.
the president nodded. “you know—when we stopped—what was wrong!”
the boy waited a minute. “no. 39 had your track,” he said at last, quietly. “she’s gone now. that’s her whistle—up the yard.” he turned his head a little.
the president’s eyes still scanned the dull face. “and you changed the switch!”
“yes, sir.”
the president pushed the papers farther from him, making a place for both arms on the table. he leaned forward a little. “so that’s what you left me for?”
the boy looked up, startled. “what, sir!”
the president nodded slowly. “to turn a switch, i suppose—” the thin hand lifted to his lips was trembling now as a leaf quivers at a sudden wind.
“some one else would have seen,” said the boy quickly.
“nobody sees—but you.” he crunched out the words. “when are you coming back?”
“back!”
“to the office—i need you.” he gulped a little over the words. he had never said as much to any one.
the lamps, with their still glow, were turned toward him. “i want to come, sir.”
“well?”
“we talked it over last night—she wants me to do it—she will come with me—but—”
the president of the road was looking down now—waiting.
the boy’s eyes studied the worn face with its wrinkles, the thin, hard lips and stern lines. something in it made his heart suddenly go from him. “i think i’m coming, sir,” he said simply.
the face did not look up. it worked strangely for a moment.
then it dropped in the folded arms on the table and rested there.
the boy fell to sorting the telegrams.
when the man looked up the face was quiet. but something had gone from it—a kind of hard selfishness. the gentleness that touched the lines had left them free. he smiled a little wistfully as he held out his hand for the papers. “i’m ready now. go ahead.”
in ten minutes the papers were all in his hands, and the special was on her way to the wreck. the boy watched it out of sight. then he turned away and crossed the tracks to the sandy bank, whistling softly—little breaths of sound that broke into lightest bubbles of joy as he climbed the bank. he was going to gather the clover blossoms, with the pink-and-white hearts, to carry home to her.
