Chapter 4

_THE WRECK AT THE JUNCTION._

The widow McVeigh's face was a picture of sobriety, in fact, almost severity. The features were conspicuous because of the abrupt falling in of her cheeks, and her grey eyes were deep set and touched at the corners by plenteous crowsfeet. Yet when the world looked at her casually it saw a smiling countenance. Some thought her face hard, and the smile bold rather than a kindly one; others, that she was of coarse intellect and smiled because she could not appreciate the daily trials and troubles of the poor. These opinions were more generally shared by the good temperance folk of the neighborhood and in the town. They only saw a tall, grey-haired woman, standing amidst the surroundings of a ramshackle inn of the country road, and taking toll from the rougher classes that passed to and fro. But had they probed farther into her life they might have unearthed the beautiful from the clay.

Moore, the operator at the railroad junction, was a patron of Nancy McVeigh's tavern, of ten years' duration. He was a quiet fellow, a plodder at his work, and without great ambitions. He knew his signals, the hour when trains were due, the words that the ticker in his little glass office spoke occasionally, and so far he was valuable to the Company. He never had had an accident, and because of his reliability his employers thought of him once every two or three years and added a hundred dollars to his salary. They made no allowance for illness or holidays, and it was Moore's proudest boast that he had never missed a day in all that time. One afternoon the superintendent stopped his car at the Junction and called the little man into his sanctum. Moore chatted with him for an hour or so, and that night his face was radiant as he smoked a pipe after supper and retold the conversation to Mrs. McVeigh. "It will mean higher pay and more responsibility," he observed, with a self-satisfied smile.

"And they'll make it a reg'lar station, ye say?" Nancy asked.

"That they will, Mrs. McVeigh. A company of city men are going to buy a large portion of the point and build on it a summer hotel. Then the people will be coming by the hundreds during the hot season, and there'll be baggage to check, tickets to sell, and a great deal of extra work. I am to have assistants, and a young fellow to handle the key, and I'll be stationmaster.

"Ye'll be gettin' married, surely?" suggested Nancy, with a sly twinkle in her eye.

"Well, no saying, but it will be a sore trial for me to quit your board," Moore answered.

"Ye understand I'm becomin' fairly old fer the tavern, and if those city men build a big house an' put in a big stock of liquors I guess there'll be no more fightin' about the license."

Moore deprecated any such result, and endeavored to argue Nancy into a like belief, but in his heart he knew that she was speaking the truth, and he really felt sorry for her.

From that day Moore began to study his work with greater zeal. Morning, afternoon and nighttime found him at his post, and the thoughts of his prospective advancement seemed to worry him. He grew thin on it, and also took a severe cold while tramping back and forth during bad weather. He would not take time to secure a doctor's advice, nor would he listen to Nancy when she scolded him for his neglect. The summer passed and the first brush of snow had come and yet he would not give in. His chief sent a letter explaining that the planned changes would go into effect the following spring. The news only added a glitter to his eye and a stimulant to his anxiety to prove his worth, but his cough still remained.

"The man'll break down and spoil everythin'," Nancy predicted to a crowd of gossips in her bar. Her prophecy came true sooner than she expected.

Moore received orders to throw the switch over to the sidetrack at the Junction, so that a work train might leave a few cars of gravel for the section-men to use the following morning. This train was due during the half-hour which he took for his supper at the tavern. He shifted the rails ready before leaving, intending to hasten back in plenty of time to connect the main line over which the No. 4 passenger would pass about nine o'clock. It was quite a usual occurrence in his routine of work, so that the matter did not cost him a second thought.

Nancy noticed the tired look about his eyes as he sat at his meal, and she determined to talk to him seriously about his health at the first favorable opportunity. Out of doors the night was intensely black, and a drizzling rain added to its inclemency.

"It's just sich a spell o' weather as'll make his cough very much worse if he don't attend to himself," Nancy told Jennie, her adopted daughter, as they saw Moore go to his room before setting out for the Junction. The tavern settled down to its accustomed quietness, Nancy and the girls knitting in the kitchen, Will Devitt leaning over the bar and talking to a few who found it more comfortable there than in the raw dampness without. Old Donald was in the stables finishing up, and a chance wayfarer snored upon the sitting-room lounge. Katie Duncan had occasion to go upstairs, and she came down with the startling news that Mr. Moore had not left his room.

"He'll no git to be the station-master if he continues the likes," Nancy remarked, as she ascended to see what was the matter with him. She found him lying on his bed apparently asleep, so she shook him, in righteous indignation at his conduct. A bottle from her bar, standing on the table, added suspicions to her wrath. Moore did not respond to her efforts as a healthy man should. Instead he turned a sickly white face to her and groaned.

"Are ye sick?" she asked.

"I must be. I can't stand up, I'm so weak," he answered faintly.

"Have ye been drinkin'?" Her eyes snapped as she asked the question.

"I've taken a little, because I'm ill, but-- Heavens, woman! what is the time?" he almost shrieked.

"It's about nine o'clock," she answered.

"Nine," he spoke as if struggling with a failing memory. "The switch is wrong, and there's a gravel train on the sidetrack. God! Mistress McVeigh, help me to get up." He tottered to his feet, groping for the door like a blind man, and then Nancy caught him in her strong arms and laid him back on the bed.

"Jennie, Mr. Moore's sick. Ye'll attend to him," she called, as she threw a heavy shawl over her head.

If those who doubted Nancy's unselfish heart and courage could have seen her plodding through the darkness, with the rain pelting down upon her, and the mud halfway to her knees, they might have forgiven much that they had believed against her. She knew the turnings of the switches and the different tracks, and it was to save Moore from disgrace, rather than to avert a disaster, that caused her to tax her old bones to their utmost, as she climbed over the fences and ran across the fields. A whistle sounded far over on the town side, and she was conscious of a dull throbbing in the air. Foot by foot she counted her chances, listening to the approaching train and exerting herself to the limit. The headlight of the locomotive was glaring at her as she climbed the sandy embankment of the track, and then, as her hands closed over the lever, the great machine went thundering by over the wrong rails. The engineer evidently had read that the signals were somewhat amiss, for his air brakes were already screaming, and he was leaning far out of his cab with his hand shading his eyes. The sand cars were a short distance up the track, and the moving train struck them with a terrific rending of iron and hissing of escaping steam. The force of the contact was lessened because of the sudden slowing up of No. 4, but it was sufficient to send two of the passenger coaches tumbling on to the boggy earth six or eight feet below the track level. The engine stood still on the rails in a cloud of steam, and the engineer was out of his cab limping towards Nancy before her mind had regained its normal conception of things. His appearance roused her to instant action. She made no explanations, nor were any questions asked of her, but the two of them ran to where the crying of pain-stricken humanity came from the derailed cars. A chaos of confusion reigned. People who were not hurt were shouting hysterically, others were making efforts to liberate the wounded. Nancy was strangely cool. She sent one to the tavern to summon help, another to the Junction to telegraph into town for doctors, and then she turned to those in the wreckage. One after another was extricated from the mass, and as they came before her on the wet grass, where coats and everything that could be found were used to lay them upon, she examined their hurts, bound up bleeding cuts, and did all that her knowledge could suggest. Soon a crowd from the neighborhood gathered and they joined in the work, and then the doctors came. By this time a second woman was helping by Nancy's side. The old inn-keeper paused once to see who it was, and nodded in recognition.

"It's a sad business, Miss Piper," she remarked, huskily.

Soon a long procession slowly wound its way across the fields to the tavern, men carrying those unable to walk, and the others who were not so badly hurt leaning on the shoulders of their companions. Nancy and Miss Piper went with the first to prepare beds and other necessaries, and all that night the two women stayed by their grim task.

"You should be a nurse," young Dr. Dodona observed to Sophia Piper, during a moment's respite.

"I would, gladly, if I had that woman to help me," she answered, and they both turned to watch Nancy, who was deftly binding a fresh bandage on the crushed leg of an elderly gentleman who seemed more concerned over the soiling of his clothes than his wound.

"Are you tired, Mrs. McVeigh?" she asked, kindly.

Nancy only smiled back a reply, and bent her grey head over her patient again.

Thirteen slightly injured, three seriously, and no deaths, was the result of the accident, and after a few days everything at the Junction was as it had been always, excepting that Nancy McVeigh's tavern had won a new guest and lost an old one. Moore had recovered from his attack a few hours after his seizure, and was taken into custody by the law to stand his trial for wilful neglect of duty, and Mr. Lawrence Hyden lay in his room with a very impatient temper and a badly crushed leg. The Wednesday of the following week was set as the day for Moore's trial, and Nancy received a summons to appear as a witness.

"I'll do that with pleasure, sure, fer it's meself that's doubtin' the senses of yon pack o' lawyers. It's jist capital they are tryin' to make out o' this affair to injure me in the eyes of the Commissioners, I'm thinkin'," she said, when the blue paper was handed to her.

The scene in the courtroom was highly interesting to her, and she wondered, as she listened to the learned talking, how their charge against Moore could have any foundation. When her name was called she was fully prepared to give them all a piece of her mind.

"Now, Mrs. McVeigh, the whole case against Mr. Moore rests on your testimony. We want to know from you if the accused was addicted to the use of liquor," the presiding counsel asked, in suave tones.

"He was not, yer worship," she answered, promptly.

"But one witness states that liquor was found in the accused man's room, and also that his breath was strongly tainted shortly after the time of the accident," the counsel continued.

The whole truth of the misunderstanding suddenly came home to Nancy, and after some bickering between the lawyers, she was allowed to narrate, in her own homely way, the current of events from the first time she had noticed the illness coming over Mr. Moore, until she had stood by the switch watching the train going to destruction. Every man in the room had heard somewhat of Nancy's peculiar existence, and they listened with doubly aroused interest to her simple tale. Suddenly an interruption came from a very unexpected quarter. Moore was swaying unsteadily, and but for the timely arm of the officer near him, would have collapsed on the floor. The court immediately adjourned whilst a doctor was sent for.

"There'll be no case, Mrs. McVeigh. It is clear in my mind that the prisoner is a very sick man and should be sent at once to the hospital. If I have my way the verdict of this examination will be a testimonial of some substantial nature to be given to a very generous-hearted old lady," the counsel said, shaking her hand warmly.

"An' who are ye blarneyin' now, Judge?" Nancy asked, not the least bit abashed at the learned man's importance.

"A certain Widow McVeigh, of the Monk Road," he answered, laughing.

'Twas a short time after this that ugly rumors of rowdyism were spread over the countryside, and while matters were at white heat the question of cancelling Nancy McVeigh's tavern license was again brought before the Commissioners. Miss Sophia Piper heard of the complaint, and made it her business to interview the stout gentleman on the Board with whom she was on friendly terms.

"You came to me once to urge the abolition of this license, but now you defend the woman," he said to her, in surprise.

"I know that Mrs. McVeigh is honorable and good, and this report is being circulated by parties who wish to secure her rights for their own purposes. If liquor is to be sold on the Monk Road, then, sir, I can speak for the whole temperance people of that section. Let Mrs. McVeigh have the selling," she answered, pleadingly; and so the license was extended for another year, as usual. But Moore did not receive the appointment as master at the new station of Monk the following spring.