The Young Train DispatcherStevenson, Burton Egbert
General
The Young Train Dispatcher
Stevenson, Burton Egbert
Railroad stories
First of all, there are the passengers for the various trains, who,
having no choice in the matter, hurry in and hurry out, or sit
uncomfortably in the dingy waiting-rooms, growing gradually dingy
themselves, and glancing at each other furtively, as though fearing
to discern or to disclose a smut. Then, strange as it may seem, there
are always a number of hangers-on about the place--idlers for whom the
railroad seems to possess a curious and irresistible fascination, who
spend hour after hour lounging on the platform, watching the trains
arrive and depart--a phenomenon observable not at Wadsworth only, but
throughout this broad land at every city, town, or hamlet through which a
railroad passes.
Across one end of the building is the baggage-room, and at the other is
the depot restaurant, dingy as the rest notwithstanding the valiant and
unceasing efforts made to keep it clean. The sandwiches and pies and
pallid cakes are protected from the contamination of the atmosphere by
glass covers which are polished until they shine again; the counter,
running the whole length of the room, is eroded by much scrubbing as
stones sometimes are, and preserves a semblance of whiteness even amid
these surroundings. Behind it against the wall stand bottles of olives,
pickles, and various relishes and condiments, which have been there for
years and years, and will be there always--for who has time for food of
that sort at a railway restaurant? Indeed, it would seem that they must
have been purchased, in the first place, for ornament rather than for use.
At one end of the counter is a glass case containing a few boxes of
stogies and cheap cigars, and at intervals along its length rise polished
nickel standards bearing fans at the top, which are set in motion by a
mechanism wound up every morning like a clock; but the motion is so slow,
the fans revolve with such calm and passionless deliberation, that they
rather add to the drowsy atmosphere of the place, and the flies alight
upon them and rub the jam from their whiskers and the molasses from their
legs, and then go quietly to sleep without a thought of danger.
How often has this present writer sat before that counter in admiring
contemplation of the presiding genius of the place as he sliced up a
boiled ham for sandwiches. He was a master of the art; those slices were
of more than paper thinness. It was his peculiar glory and distinction to
be able to get more sandwiches out of a ham than any other mere mortal
had ever been able to do, and he was proud of it as was Napoleon of the
campaign of Austerlitz.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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