The Night OperatorPackard, Frank L. (Frank Lucius)
General
The Night Operator
Packard, Frank L. (Frank Lucius)
Fiction; Railroad stories; Short stories
Piecemeal, Toddles wouldn't convey anything to you to speak of. You'd
have to see Toddles coming down the aisle of a car to get him at
all--and then the chances are you'd turn around after he'd gone by and
stare at him, and it would be even money that you'd call him back and
fish for a dime to buy something by way of excuse. Toddles got a good
deal of business that way. Toddles had a uniform and a regular run all
right, but he wasn't what he passionately longed to be--a legitimate,
dyed-in-the-wool railroader. His paycheck, plus commissions, came from
the News Company down East that had the railroad concession. Toddles
was a newsboy. In his blue uniform and silver buttons, Toddles used to
stack up about the height of the back of the car seats as he hawked his
wares along the aisles; and the only thing that was big about him was
his head, which looked as though it had got a whopping big lead on his
body--and didn't intend to let the body cut the lead down any. This
meant a big cap, and, as Toddles used to tilt the vizor forward, the
tip of his nose, bar his mouth which was generous, was about all one
got of his face. Cap, buttons, magazines and peanuts, that was
Toddles--all except his voice. Toddles had a voice that would make you
jump if you were nervous the minute he opened the car door, and if you
weren't nervous you would be before he had reached the other end of the
aisle--it began low down somewhere on high G and went through you
shrill as an east wind, and ended like the shriek of a brake-shoe with
everything the Westinghouse equipment had to offer cutting loose on a
quick stop.
Hawkeye? That was what Toddles called his beady-eyed conductor in
retaliation. Hawkeye used to nag Toddles every chance he got, and,
being Toddles' conductor, Hawkeye got a good many chances. In a word,
Hawkeye, carrying the punch on the local passenger, that happened to be
the run Toddles was given when the News Company sent him out from the
East, used to think he got a good deal of fun out of Toddles--only his
idea of fun and Toddles' idea of fun were as divergent as the poles,
that was all.
Toddles, however, wasn't anybody's fool, not by several degrees--not
even Hawkeye's. Toddles hated Hawkeye like poison; and his hate, apart
from daily annoyances, was deep-seated. It was Hawkeye who had dubbed
him "Toddles." And Toddles repudiated the name with his heart, his
soul--and his fists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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