American fiction -- 20th century; Railroad stories
There was silence in the car. The train sped through soft, even
darkness. The engine shrieked at a solitary grade crossing and was past.
The man lifted his head. There was a deep smile in his eyes.... “It
’s all going to be different,” he said slowly, “Just wait till we get
things in hand--I ’m going over the road.”... He drew a map from his
pocket and spread it on the table.... “Here is a place I want to know.”
He pointed to a corner of the map, “They ’re always making a fuss
up there--saying the road’s got to come their way. The division
superintendent says it won’t pay--They say it will. I ’m going up.”
John leaned forward--“Chester County.” He spelled the name across the
map. “My father knows Chester County.”
Simeon looked up with quick stare... “Your father?”
“He lived there when he was a boy.”
“I must know him,” said Simeon. “I ’ll take him with me.”
John smiled at the picture--but underneath the smile ran a swift sense
of his father’s presence--its slow, steadying power upon the nervous,
hurrying man. He would rest in the stolid strength of it. “I ’ll bring
him to see you,” he said.
“Yes--What is your mother like?--You have not told me about your
mother.” He gazed at the boy deeply.
“There’s no one like her,” said John. “I could n’t tell you. Nobody
could tell about Mother.” His glance had traveled to the rack overhead
where the fragrant boughs hung out, filling the air with light
fragrance--He saw the light in her face and her hands held out to
them--He smiled.
Simeon sighed and moved restlessly. He held another match to the cigar
and his eye, as it followed the steady hand, filled with quick pride.
John was watching the hand, too, and the eyes of the two men met.
“I ’m all right,” said Simeon, throwing away the match with a little
laugh.
“You ’re all right,” said John with deeper meaning.
“And I ’m a young man.” He rose and paced a few steps in the car--“I ’m
forty-three--You don’t call that old?”
The eyes watching him smiled.
“That is not old,” said Simeon. He stretched himself to his full height,
rapping his chest softly. He threw out his arm--toward the night. “I’m
just beginning,” he said.
The brakeman passed through the car-carrying something on his arm. A
piece of old cloth, a bit of signal flag, was thrown carelessly across
it.
John’s eye followed him to the rear of the car. After a minute he got
up and went to the door. He opened it and stepped onto the platform. The
brakeman was bending over the end of the car, peering down at something.
He tested it once or twice with his hand before he scrambled to his
feet. “It ’s the red,” he said as he saw who stood beside him. “It don’t
burn right--”
“Yes--What’s up?” The train was swirling through the dark and they held
to the guard-rail as they faced each other.
In his cab, at the other end of the train, the old Scotchman, his body
braced to the swing of the wheels, leaned out, looking back with tense
eyes.
“Can ye see her, Jim?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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