FACING THE LION

So the afternoon passed happily; with reading, with talking, with little confidences, interrupted, now and then, by the busy instrument on the table, or by some trainman stalking in to get his orders, and going out with a knowing smile upon his lips. All too soon, as it seemed to Allan, the night man came up the steps; for the first time in his experience, Allan found the sight of him unwelcome. Ten minutes later, the train was bearing him and Bess Heywood homewards. That half-hour journey never seemed so short.

Mr. Heywood was awaiting them on the grimy Wadsworth platform.

“Thank you, Allan,” he said, “for taking care of the runaway. I thought she was old enough to travel alone, but it seems I was mistaken. I’ll have to send a nurse along hereafter.”

“Good-bye, Allan,” said the Vision, holding out her hand, and Allan was quite shocked, when he took it, by its smallness and softness.

“Good-bye,” he answered, but his tongue dared not pronounce her name.

He watched them until they disappeared in the darkness, then turned away across the yards, meditating anxiously whether a Being with a hand so small and soft, so evidently fragile, could long withstand the buffets of a world so rude and harsh as this one.

“Well, young lady,” said Mr. Heywood, at the dinner-table that evening, “I hope you were sufficiently punished for your thoughtlessness in wandering away from your train.”

“It wasn’t such terrible punishment, papa,” answered Bess. “I had a very pleasant afternoon. I think Allan is just fine.”

“So do I,” agreed her father promptly. “He’s a nice boy.”

“And he knows such a lot,” added Bess. “I felt a perfect booby.”

“Quite a salutary feeling for a young lady,” nodded her father. “Especially for one who has always had an excellent opinion of herself.”

“Oh, papa!” protested Bess. “I’m not conceited!”

“No, not that precisely,” agreed her father; "but most girls, when they get to be about eighteen, and have all the boys making sheep’s-eyes at them, begin to think that this world was made especially for them, and that nobody else has any right in it, except perhaps to hustle around and provide them with ribbons and chiffon ruffles. It’s good for them to get a hint, now and then, that the world is really something more than a pedestal for them to stand on."

Bess sighed, a little dismally.

“I never understood before,” she said, “how awfully I’ve been wasting my time.”

“If you never waste any more, my dear, you’ll have nothing to regret. Most women don’t wake up to the fact that they’re wasting their time until they’re middle-aged, and by that time they’ve fallen into such a habit of doing so that they can’t change.”

“I believe,” added Bess, thoughtfully, “that I’ll ask Allan to the party I’m going to give next week.”

“Do, by all means,” said her father, heartily. “It will do you good, and it won’t hurt him.”

So it came to pass, a few days later, that the postman mounted the steps to the little Welsh cottage and left there a tiny envelope addressed to “Mr. Allan West.” Mary received it, and turned it over and over.

“It’s from a girl,” was her comment. “Bad cess to her. But I knowed th’ girls couldn’t let sich a foine-lookin’ lad as that alone. They’ll be makin’ eyes at him, an’ pertendin’ t’ edge away, an’ all th’ toime invitin’ him on—don’t I know ’em!” And Mary grew quite warm with indignation, entirely forgetting that she herself had been a girl once upon a time, and an adept in all the arts of that pretty game of advance and retreat which she now denounced so vigorously.

She laid the letter on Allan’s plate, and noted the little shock of surprise with which he found it there when he sat down to supper that evening.

“Hello; what’s this?” he asked, picking it up.

“It’s a letter come fer ye this mornin’,” answered Mary, and she and Jack and Mamie all waited for him to open it, which he did with a hand not wholly steady.

“‘Miss Elizabeth Heywood,’” he read, “‘requests the pleasure of Mr. Allan West’s company, Thursday evening, April 28th. Seven o’clock.’”

“Well, of all th’ forrerd minxes!” burst out Mary. “Why, when I was a girl, I’d a’ no more thought o’ writin’ a young man t’ come an’ see me—”

Jack interrupted her with a roar of laughter.

“Why, Mary,” he cried, “don’t ye see! It’s a party she’s askin’ him to—th’ sup’rintindint’s daughter!”

“A party! Th’ sup’rintindint’s daughter!” and Mary paused between jealousy for her boy and pride that he should have received such an invitation.

“An’ of course he’ll go,” added Jack, with decision. “It’s a shame t’ kape a foine felly like Allan shut up here with us old fogies.”

“Well, I’ll say this,” said Mary, pouring out the coffee, “if he does go, they won’t be no finer lookin’ young felly there.”

And I am inclined to think that Betty Heywood thought so, too, when she came forward to meet him that Thursday evening.

“How glad I am to see you,” she said, with a bright smile of welcome.

As for Allan, he was for the moment tongue-tied. If she had been a vision in her gray travelling-suit, what was she now, clad, as it seemed to him, in a sparkling cloud of purest white? She noticed his confusion, and no doubt interpreted it aright—as what girl would not?—for she went on, without appearing to notice it:

“And I want my mother to know you. Here she is, over here,” and she led the way to a beautiful woman of middle age, who sat in a great chair at one end of the room, the centre of a little court. “Mother, this is Allan West.”

Mrs. Heywood held out to him a hand even smaller and softer than her daughter’s.

“I am glad to know you, my boy,” she said. “Mr. Heywood has spoken so much of you that I feel as though I had known you a long time. Won’t you sit down here by me awhile?”

Betty gave a little nod of satisfaction, and hurried away to meet some other guests, whirling away with her the circle which had been about her mother’s chair. Allan sat down, thinking that he had never heard a voice as sweet as Mrs. Heywood’s.

“We invalids, you know,” she went on, with a little smile, “must be humoured. We can’t go to people, so people must come to us. It’s like Mahomet and the mountain.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” answered Allan, with a shy glance of admiration, “but of the fisherman and the Princess.”

“So you know your Arabian Nights!” said Mrs. Heywood, colouring faintly with pleasure at the compliment. “That is right—every boy ought to know them. But you make me feel a sort of impostor. I have used that reference to Mahomet and the mountain all my life, but I don’t know that I ever really heard the story. Do you know it?”

“Bacon tells about it in one of his essays,” Allan answered. “It seems that Mahomet announced one day that he would call a hill to him, and offer up prayers from the top of it. A great crowd assembled and Mahomet called the hill again and again, but it didn’t move, and finally, without seeming worried or abashed, he announced that, since the mountain wouldn’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain, and marched away to it as proudly as though the mountain had obeyed him.”

“That is the first time I ever heard the whole story,” said Mrs. Heywood, laughing, and she shot him a little observing glance, for he seemed an unusual boy. Then she led him on to tell her something of himself, and almost before he knew it, he was telling her much more than he had ever thought to tell any one. There was a subtle sympathy about her—in her smile, in her quiet eyes—which there was no resisting.

She sent him away, at last, to join the younger guests, but he did not feel at ease with them, as he had with the older woman. They were all polite enough, but youth is selfish, and Allan soon found that he and they had few interests in common; there was nothing to talk about; they had not the same friends, nor the same habits of thought; there were no mutual recollections to laugh over, nor plans to make for next day or next week. Of his hostess he saw very little, for her other guests claimed her attention at every turn—Betty Heywood was evidently immensely popular.

So Allan was glad, on the whole, when the time came to take his leave, and as he walked homeward under the bright stars, he was forced to admit that his first evening in society had been, in a way, a failure. He resolved that he did not care for it and would not go again. Indeed, he had no chance, for Bess Heywood’s friends voted him a “stick,” and soon forgot all about him. Nor did that young lady herself preserve a very vivid recollection of him, for her days were filled with other duties and pleasures. Her mother’s invalidism threw upon her much of the responsibility of household management, and she was just at the age when social claims are heaviest and most difficult to evade. Not that she sought to evade them, for she enjoyed social relaxation, but in the whirl of party and ball, of calling and receiving calls, the memory of that afternoon in the operator’s shanty at the Junction grew faint and far away.

And Allan, in the long evenings, buried himself in his books and banished resolutely whatever dreams may have arisen in his heart, with such philosophy as he possessed.

He soon had other things to think about. One of the dispatchers, in a moment of carelessness, had issued contradictory orders which had resulted in a wreck. In consequence he was compelled to seek a position somewhere else, and everybody below him in the office moved up a notch. The extra dispatcher was given a regular trick, and his place in consequence became vacant.

A day or two later, Allan received a message from the trainmaster ordering him to report at headquarters, and when he did so, he found that he was to be initiated into the mysteries of the dispatchers’ office.

“That is, if you want the job,” added Mr. Schofield.

Allan pondered a moment. The responsibilities of such a position frightened him. As an operator, he had only to carry out the orders sent him; but as a dispatcher it would be his duty to issue those orders. The difference was the same as that between the general of an army and the private in the ranks. The private has only to obey orders, without bothering as to their wisdom or folly; if a defeat follows, it is the general who must answer for it. So each dispatcher has under him, for eight hours every day, one hundred miles of track, and a regiment of operators and trainmen, who must obey his orders without question. That stretch of track is the battlefield, and the victory to be gained is to move over it, without accident, and on time, such passenger and freight trains as the business of the road demands. This is the problem which confronts the dispatcher every time he sits down before his desk.

All this flashed through Allan’s mind in that moment of reflection. And yet he did not really hesitate. He knew that the only road of advancement open to him lay through the dispatchers’ office. There was no way around. If he faltered now, he must remain an operator always.

“Of course I want the job, sir,” he said. “The only question is whether I’m good enough.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” said Mr. Schofield, grimly. "The principal thing to remember is that never, under any circumstances, must you lose your head. Keep cool, and you’ve got the battle half won. But if you ever let the work get on your nerves, it’s all over. You don’t remember Dan Maroney? He was before your time. Well, Maroney was one of the best operators we had on the road, a bright fellow, and I finally called him in to take the extra dispatcher’s trick. He seemed to pick up the work all right, and I hadn’t any doubt he would make a good dispatcher. One night, the regular dispatcher reported sick, and so I sent for Dan. He took off his coat and sat down at the desk, and the dispatcher who was going off duty explained to him how the trains lay and what orders had been issued. Dan seemed to catch on all right, so the other dispatcher put on his coat and went home. About twenty minutes later, I happened into the office, and there was Dan, lying back in his chair, white as a sheet and trembling like a leaf.

“‘Why, what’s the matter, Dan?’ I asked. ‘Are you sick?’

“‘No, I ain’t sick, Mr. Schofield,’ he said, and grinned the ghastliest grin I ever saw on a man’s face. ‘But I ain’t fit for this job. I’ve lost my nerve.’

“And, in fact, he was nearly scared to death. Well, we tried to bolster him up and help him along, but it was no use. He’d lost his nerve, as he said, and he never got it back again. He’s agent and operator now at Bluefield, and that’s as far as he’ll ever get. So whatever you do, don’t lost your nerve.”

“I’ll try not to,” said Allan.

“I’ve often thought,” added Mr. Schofield, "that a dispatcher was a good deal like a lion-tamer. You know, the tamer enters the cage with perfect safety so long as he keeps his beasts under control. But the moment he loses his nerve, they seem to know it, some way, and perhaps he gets out of the cage alive and perhaps he doesn’t. If he does, he never dares go back. He’s lost his grip on the beasts and they no longer fear him. Well, the railroad is like that. Lose your grip on it, and it’s all over; the only thing to do is to get out as quick as you can."

“I’m going to do my best,” said Allan. “I’ll look it right in the eye.”

“Good. That’s the spirit! You will report here for duty to-morrow morning at seven o’clock. I’ll send Jones out to Byers in your place.”

And Allan left the office, resolved that whatever happened, he would keep his nerve.