I rushed through the crowd toward the auction block, calling her name aloud as I went. Strong men tried to catch and hold me, but I wiggled from their grasp. I reached the block and caught hold of her dress, but she could not stoop down to pick me up and hug me to her heart, because her hands were tied behind her back. I could see her struggle in a mighty effort to break the cords that bound her. Sorrow gave her the strength of a giantess, and I saw the cords break and fall to the ground. The next moment she had clasped me to her breast and made an attempt to run away with me through the crowd. Blood hounds caught her by the throat and she fell to the ground. I was torn from her bosom by the cruel hands of the man who had bought her, and when she reached her hands toward me the brutal man struck her loving hands with the butt-end of his whip. Then he raised the whip to strike me in the face, and as the blow descended I awoke. I was wet with perspiration, and tears of agony stood on my cheeks. Think of this—less than fifty years ago such scenes were common—to other mothers and other sons. THE OLD YARD MASTER I was waiting on the ten o’clock train to leave the depot at Williamsport, Pa., when a vigorous old man came into the waiting room, accompanied by four children. It was an hour yet before train time, and I happened to be the only waiting passenger up to this time. I had come down from Lock Haven on the early morning train, and had two hours on my hands before the Reading train pulled out for Philadelphia. I had passed some of the time away talking to the vigorous scrub woman, who had mopped up the entire floor space of the station since daylight. She had gathered up her buckets and brooms and mops, and was leaving when the vigorous old man and the four children arrived. He bade me good morning and then seated the children, but he did not sit down himself. He walked to the south window and looked out over the frozen river for several minutes, then turned to me and said: “The old river looks tame under her lid of ice, but some day she’ll get up and shove the lid off, and if the lid refuses to go, there will be a scene along here. I’ve seen her get her back up in my time and shove ice up on the tracks, right here in front of the station.” “I wonder how deep the flood in 1889 was in the station,” I ventured. He put his finger on a spot a few inches up the window facing and said: “About here somewhere, I think. I was here at the time. You see, I was yard master here up to sixteen years ago. The boys went out on a strike, and I went out along and I never came back. I went into business and gave up railroading.” “Do you never intend to railroad again?” I asked, by way of keeping up the conversation. “Oh, no; the roads have no use for us old fellows any more. They want younger blood.” “But you are not so old,” I said.