On the Iron at Big CloudPackard, Frank L. (Frank Lucius)
General
On the Iron at Big Cloud
Packard, Frank L. (Frank Lucius)
Canadian fiction -- 20th century; Railroad stories; Short stories, Canadian
Such is the Hill Division. You who know the Rockies know it for the
grandeur of its scenery, know it for the glory of its conquest over
obstacles seemingly insurmountable; but there is another side that you
may not know, a side that the maps and plans and blueprints and the
railroad folders and the windows of the observation cars, big as they
are, do not show--and that side is the human side. It is full of tears
and laughter, full of sorrow and joy, of dangers and death and mistakes
and triumph--its history would fill many pages, but it is a history that
will never be written, for the generals and the rank and file of its
army have fought their battles without the blare of trumpets, have done
their work and their duty as they saw it, simply and with few words,
without thought of personal profit and, much less, of fame. They tell
their own stories amongst themselves, and they hold in honor those
entitled thereto--which is a meed beyond any recognition of governments
or kings or principalities, because it is the tribute of man to man,
without glamor and without pretense. If you are a man as they measure
men, they will tell you the stories, too; and, if you care to smoke,
they will offer you their black plugs with the heart-shaped tin tags
that their favorite manufacturer imbeds therein and, further, they will
hand you their clasp knives with which to slice it. If you are wise you
will understand that you are honored above most men, and you will be
becomingly humble and will listen. But if this, through circumstance and
misfortune, has never been your lot, then, here and there, inadequately
and meagerly, you may run across, in print, a stray breath from the Hill
Division--this is a case in print--the story of “King” Gilleen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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