LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2478, 16 March 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

THE ENGINEER’S STORY. ( Concluded .) 1 How goes it Pard 1 ’ Bat he didn’t know me. That was Thanksgiving Day, you know, ’n’ I set there by him, hopin’ every minnlt as he might oome round, so I give ’im his things and we could hev our holiday jest as we used to do. But he kep’ gettln’ worse from hour to hour. He was sick jest a week and wanderin’and wild from first to last. I stayed with ’im all the time, for I hadn’t wits enough left to handle a machine, and the boys sent word not to bother myself about business ’n' they’p see me through, So, between ’em they did my duty and No. 29 went up and down in her reg’ltr runs just as if I was at the lever. You know I was tellin’ about the water tank near the house. It didn’t use to be used much, but that week it seemed as though there wasn’t a traik either way that didn’t get out o’ water just there, and some of ’em would come over to see about the boy. And their wives kept sendin’ nice things—and they were poor people, too. You see, somehow it travelled about as fast as what little Pard had done, stoppin’ the train that night, ’n’ he sicb a mite of a child. An’ it got Into the newspapers and the President of the road came up to see ’im and all that Bat he just went on from day to day. for death struck ’im from the first moment as he stood there in tbe winter rain. From b’s talking while be was delirious we found out pretty much all how it was. I reckon he heard the storm in his sleep and the roarin’ of the run, and that set him to dreamin’. Of coarse he knew It was my night, ’n’ I had often told ’im what a bad place it was, and what to do If anything happened —never thinking that he’d go to doin’ of it hisself. But he gits up in his sleep, takes his lantern and goes out to meet me. I’d be a sittln’ there watohin’ of ’im by fals bed, V he’d begin first, jest kind o’ mutturin’, and I’d hear him say, soft, like as ef he was talkin’ to hisself ;

‘Pard’s due at the run in twenty minita. I kin get there in time.’ 'Peara like it was all goin' through fcia mind agin and he was doin’ over jest what he did that night. We oonld tell wen he got to the place where the road broke, for he sea, ‘ Kin I git over on that log 7 Ef I don’t my pard ’ll be killed.’ Then seemed as though he was goin’ down to the curve where we found him. An’ he’d shiver like as ef the cold rain was strikin’ 'im.

You see we could mostly toiler ’im by watchin’ ’im and ketchln’ what he said. Onot ’an’ twict he shook right hard, and his teeth chattered. We thought it was the cold he was feelin’ agin as be felt out there in the night with nothin’ on Tm. Then he keeps still awhile like he was a waitin’ and listenin’ for the trail, and yon’d see 'im bold bis breath fearin’ he couldn’t ketch the sound. Pretty soon he speaks agin, gently like, and sees :

4 Kin he see the light in time ?’ ’N he waits a bit. Next he jumps right up in bed on bis knees and screams out at the top of his voice ; 4 Stop her, Pard I Stop 29 ! ’ Stranger. I’ve seen frightful things in my time, but I never see anything so awful as that was. Pale and wild with the fever on ’im, that mere baby was trying to make me hear, and the wind howlin’ and the train roarin’ the way it was. An’ we’d try to keep him still, ’a’ his mother would coax him, and I’d try to quiet him ’a’ he’d scream agia : 4 Culvert’s gone! Stop her, Pard ! ’ An’ I’d take'm in my arms ’a’ he'd be all of a quiver. Then it seemed like he heered me whistle, for he ses :

* All right ! he’s blewin’ brakes.’ An’ I puts ’im back in bed and he lays still a minit like he was listenin’, and ses :

‘ He’s a reversin’ of 29, he is ! My pard —pard’s safe.’ Then he’d shut his eyes and drop off, and smile in his sleep, like he was satisfied. By-and-bye, he’d begin and go all over it agin, and so, day after day, allers the same. He seemed to hev it in his mind all the time.

The doctor, yon know him I was a telUn’ about, well, he stopped off that night and stayed with ns the whole week and nursed baby like he was his own. ’N wen it was all over I thought it was right, ’n’ X ses to 'im, 1 Doctor ! can I pay you ?’ * No,’ ses he, * Latham, you can’t. His life saved mine. ’N besides that, Latham, ’n’ he filled np like; besides that, Latham, I’ve got one jest hia age. There ain’t nothin’ yon kin give me but that little earl there on his forehead. ’

So Mary takes the scissors and outs it off. He kissed It, ’n put it in hia pocket ’n went away. On the night of the break at Devil’s Run, wen I got off the machine to see what was the matter, I pulls out my watch and it was twelve o’clock and three minits. It was exactly a week after that I took out my watch and it was twelve o’clock and three minits. Some of the neighbors bad come from around In the mountains, ’n a minister had come from a village about fifteen miles off. I didn’t give no attention to nothin’, for I was stunned like and didn’t know how It all was. I was settln’ in front of the house on a large stone where Charley used to sit and wait for me wen I was cornin’ by, and I heard a whistle. An’ I see a train. It stopped near where I was. The locomotive was No. 29. The boys had her dressed in monrntn’. Bill Walker was runnin’ her, and Crazy was firin’. There were three ooaohea, filled with the boys and their wives and children.

5 They was • in their best clothes, ’n when they came by where I was slttln’—they all knew it was little Charley’a place —the men took off their hats and the women had their handkerchera to thoir facoa. I alhia knowd they was very fond of him, but it seemed as though they had lost an only child. There were six little boys, all the same size, and they took him np, and wo all follcrod up the side of the mountain.

It was a mild day, and tho sun shinin’ bright. We crossed Devil’s Kun and came to a place of level ground whore there was some large pine trees. It was just over the cliff, a little ways from the road, say 100 feet, and in plain sight of where ho stood wavin’ h ; a lantern backward and forward slowly a toss the track when ho said, — * You and me’s pards, Isn’t we 7 ’

After all, it was harder on Mary than on me. In three months' time I took her there too. I stayed on the line a little while after that, but I couldn’t never go back to my house agin, and whenever I was goin’ by and saw those two heaps of fresh earth It worked on me so I couldn’t stand it.

As I was tollin’, I sometimes think I’d like to back there, and see the place once more, but seems as If I was afeerd. I don’t believe In ghosts, but on a dark night I'd see my little Charley waving his light as he did that night when It cost him his life.