A NEW FRIEND

The crash was followed by an instant’s silence, as every man dropped his work and stood with strained attention to see what had happened; then the young fellow whose arm Allan still held turned toward him with a quick gesture.

“Why,” he cried, “you—you saved my life!”

“Yes,” said Allan; “I saw the block coming. It was lucky I happened to be looking at it.”

“Lucky!” echoed the other, visibly shaken by his narrow escape, and he glanced at the splintered board where he had been standing. “I should say so! Imagine what I’d have looked like about this time, if you hadn’t dragged me out of the way!”

The other men rushed up, stared, exclaimed, and began to devise explanations of how the accident had occurred. No one could tell certainly, but it was pretty generally agreed that the sudden rebound from the strain, as the boiler fell into place, had in some way loosened the block, thrown it away from its tackle, and hurled it to the floor below.

But neither Allan nor his companion paid much attention to these explanations. For the moment, they were more interested in each other than in anything else. A sudden comradeship, born in the first glance they exchanged, had arisen between them; a mutual feeling that they would like to know each other—a prevision of friendship.

“My name is Anderson,” the boy was saying, his hand outstretched; “my first name is James—but my friends call me Jim.”

“And my name is Allan West,” responded Allan, clasping the proffered hand in a warm grip.

“Oho!” cried Jim, with a start of surprise, “so you’re Allan West! Well, I’ve always wanted to know you, but I never thought you’d introduce yourself like this!”

“Always wanted to know me?” repeated Allan in bewilderment. “How could that be?”

“Hero-worship, my boy!” explained Jim, grinning at Allan’s blush. “Do you suppose there’s a man on this road who hasn’t heard of your exploits? And to hero-worship there is now added a lively sense of gratitude, since you arrived just in time to save me from being converted into a grease-spot. But there—the rest will keep for another time. Where do you live?”

“At Jack Welsh’s house,” answered Allan; “just back of the yards yonder.”

“All right, my friend,” said Jim. “I’ll take the liberty of paying you a call before very long. I only hope you’ll be at home.”

“I surely will, if you’ll let me know when to look for you,” answered Allan, heartily. “But I’ve got some letters here for the master-mechanic—I mustn’t waste any more time.”

“Well!” said Jim, smiling, “I don’t think you’ve been exactly wasting your time—though of course there might be a difference of opinion about that. But there he comes now,” and he nodded toward the tall figure of the master-mechanic, who had heard of the accident and was hastening to investigate it.

Allan handed him his letters, which he thrust absently into his pocket, as he listened with bent head to the foreman’s account of the mishap. Allan did not wait to hear it, but, conscious that the errand was taking longer than it should, hurried on to deliver the other letters. This was accomplished in a very few minutes, and he was soon back again at his desk in the trainmaster’s office.

He spent the next half-hour in sorting the mail which had accumulated there. The trainmaster was busy dictating letters to his stenographer, wading through the mass of correspondence before him with a rapidity born of long experience. Allan never ceased to be astonished at the vast quantity of mail which poured in and out of the office—letters upon every conceivable subject connected with the operation of the road—reports of all sorts, inquiries, complaints, requisitions—all of which had to be carefully attended to if the business of the road was to move smoothly.

There was no end to it. Every train brought a big batch of correspondence, which it was his duty to receive, delivering at the same time to the baggage-master other packets addressed to employees at various points along the road. The road took care of its own mail in this manner, without asking the aid of Uncle Sam, and so escaped a charge for postage which would have made a serious hole in the earnings.

As soon as he had received the mail, Allan would hasten up-stairs to his desk to sort it. Always about him, echoing through the office, rose the clatter of the telegraph instruments. The trainmaster had one at his elbow, the chief-dispatcher another, and in the dispatchers’ office next door three or four more were constantly chattering. It reminded Allan of nothing so much as a chorus of blackbirds.

Often Mr. Schofield would pause in the midst of dictating a letter, open his key and engage in conversation with some one out on the line. And Allan realized that, after all, the pile of letters, huge as it was, represented only a small portion of the road’s business—that by far the greater part of it was transacted by wire. And he determined to master the secrets of telegraphy at the earliest possible moment. It was plainly to be seen that that way, and that way only, lay promotion.

He was still pondering this idea when, the day’s work over, he left the office and made his way toward the little house perched high on an embankment back of the yards, where he had lived ever since he had come to Wadsworth, a year before, in search of work. Big-hearted Jack Welsh had not only given him work, but had offered him a home—and a real home the boy found it. He had grown as dear to Mary Welsh’s heart as was her own little girl, Mamie, who had just attained the proud age of seven and was starting to school.

Allan found her now, waiting for him at the gate, and she escorted him proudly up the path and into the house.

“Well, an’ how d’ you like your new job?” Mary asked, as they sat down to supper.

“First rate,” Allan answered, and described in detail how he had spent the day.

Mary sniffed contemptuously when he had finished.

“I don’t call that sech a foine job,” she said. “Why, anybody could do that! A boy loike you deserves somethin’ better! An’ after what ye did fer th’ road, too!”

“But don’t you see,” Allan protested, “it isn’t so much the job itself, as the chance it gives me. I’m at the bottom of the ladder, it’s true, just as John Marney said; but there is a ladder, and a tall one, and if I stay at the bottom it’s my own fault.”

Jack nodded from across the table.

“Right you are,” he agreed. “And you’ll git ahead, never fear!”

“I’m going to try,” said Allan, and as soon as supper was over, he left the house and hastened uptown to the Public Library, where he asked for a book on telegraphy. He was just leaving the building with the coveted volume under his arm, when somebody clapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to find Jim Anderson at his side.

“I say,” cried the latter, “this is luck! Where you going?”

“I was just starting for home,” said Allan.

“I’ll go with you,” said Jim, promptly wheeling into step beside him and locking arms. “That is, if you don’t mind.”

“Mind!” cried Allan. “You know I’m glad to have you.”

“All right then,” said Jim, laughing. “That’s a great load off my mind. What’s that book you’re hugging so lovingly?”

“It’s a book on telegraphy,” and Allan showed him the title.

“Going to study it?”

“Yes; it didn’t take me long to find out that to amount to anything in the offices, one has to understand what all that chatter is about.”

“Right you are,” assented Jim, “but you’ll find it mighty hard work learning it from a book. It’ll be a good deal like learning to eat without any food to practise on. Have you got an instrument?”

“No. But of course I’ll get one.”

“Look here!” cried Jim, excitedly, struck by a sudden idea; "I have it! My brother Bob has two instruments stored away in the attic, batteries and everything. He’s the operator at Belpre now, and hasn’t any more use for them than a dog has for two tails. He’ll be glad to let us have them—glad to know that his lazy brother’s improving his spare time. Why can’t we rig up a line from your house to mine, and learn together? I’m pretty sure I can get some old wire down at the shops for almost nothing."

“That’s a great idea,” said Allan, admiringly; “if we can only carry it out. Where do you live? Is it very far?”

“Well, it’s quite a way; but I think we can manage it,” said Jim. “Suppose we look over the ground.”

“All right; only wait till I take this book home; I live just over yonder,” and a moment later they were at the gate. “Won’t you come in?”

“No, not this time; it’ll soon be dark and we’ll have to step out pretty lively.”

“I won’t be but a minute,” said Allan; and he wasn’t.

The two started up through the yards together, arm in arm. Jim’s house was, as he had said, “quite a way;” in fact, it was nearly a mile away, straight out the railroad-track. The house was a large brick, which stood very near the track, so near, indeed, that one corner had been cut away to permit the railroad to get by. The house had been built there nearly a century before by some wealthy farmer who had never heard of a railroad, and never dreamed that his property would one day be wanted for a right of way. But the day came when the railroad’s surveyors ran their line of stakes out from the town, along the river-bank, and up to the very door of the house itself. Condemnation proceedings were begun, the railroad secured the strip of land it wanted, and tore down the corner of the house which stood upon it. Whereupon the owner had walled up the opening and rented what remained of the building to such families as had nerves strong enough to ignore the roar and rumble of the trains, passing so near that they seemed hurling themselves through the very house itself.

Allan knew it well. He had passed it many and many a time while he was working on section. Indeed, it was this old house, when he learned its history, which made him realize for the first time, how young, how very modern the railroad was. Looking at it—at its massive track, its enduring roadway carried on great fills and mighty bridges—it seemed as old, as venerable, as the rugged hills which frowned down upon the valley; it seemed that it must have been there from the dawn of time, that it was the product of a force greater than any now known to man. And yet, really, it had been in existence scarce half a century. Many men were living who had seen the first rail laid, who had welcomed the arrival of the first train, and who still recalled with mellow and tender memory the days of the stage-coach—a mode of travel which, seen through the prism of the years, quite eclipsed this new fashion in romance, in comfort, and in good-fellowship.

This leviathan of steel and oak had grown like the beanstalk of Jack the Giant-killer—had spread and spread with incredible rapidity, until it reached, not from earth to heaven, but from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf. It had brought San Francisco as near Boston as was Philadelphia in the days of the post rider. The four days’ stage journey from New York to Boston it covered in four hours. It had bound together into a concrete whole a country so vast that it equals in area the whole of Europe. And all this in little more than fifty years! Verily, there are modern labours of Hercules beside which the ancient ones seem mere child’s play!

“It’s a long stretch,” said Allan, looking back, through the gathering darkness, along the way that they had come. “It must be nearly a mile from here to the station.”

“Just about,” agreed Jim. “But I know Tom Mickey, the head lineman, pretty well, and I believe that I can get him to let us string our wire on the company’s poles. You see there’s three or four empty places on the cross-bars.”

“Oh, if we can do that,” said Allan, “it will be easy enough. Do you suppose he will let us?”

“I’m sure he will,” asserted Jim, with a good deal more positiveness than he really felt. “I’ll see Mickey in the morning—I’ll start early so I’ll have time before the whistle blows.”

“It seems to me that you’re doing it all, and that I’m not doing anything,” said Allan. “You must let me furnish the wire, anyway.”

“We’ll see about it,” said Jim. “Won’t you come in and see my mother?” he added, a little shyly.

“It’s pretty late,” said Allan. “Do you think I’d better?”

“Yes,” Jim replied. “She—she asked me to bring you, the first chance I had.”

“What for?” asked Allan, looking at him in surprise.

“No matter,” said Jim. “Come on,” and he opened the door and led him into the house.

They crossed a hall, and beside a table in the room beyond, Allan saw a woman seated. She was bending over some sewing in her lap, but she looked up at the sound of their entrance, and as the beams of the lamp fell upon her face, Allan saw how it lighted with love and happiness. And his heart gave a sudden throb of misery, for it was with that selfsame light in her eyes that his mother had welcomed him in the old days.

“Mother,” Jim was saying, “this is Allan West.”

She rose with a little cry of pleasure, letting her sewing fall unheeded to the floor, and held out her hands to him.

“So this is Allan West!” she said, in a voice soft and sweet and gentle. “This is the boy who saved my boy’s life!”

“It was nothing,” stammered Allan, turning crimson. “You see, I just happened to be there—”

“Nothing! I wonder if your mother would think it nothing if some one had saved you for her!”

A sudden mist came before Allan’s eyes; his lips trembled. And the woman before him, looking at him with loving, searching eyes, understood.

“Dear boy!” she said, and Allan found himself clasped close against her heart.