Part 3

The fireman, the engineer's _left_-hand man, his trump card, without whom it would be difficult for him to get over the road, is seen but little, and thought but little of. He is usually dirty and greasy, wearing a ragged pair of overalls, originally blue, but now embroidered so with oil and dust, that they are become a smutty brown. Just before the train leaves the station, you will see his face, down which streams the perspiration, looking back, watching for the signal to start; for this is one of his many duties. His head is usually ornamented (in his opinion) with some outlandish cap or hat; though others regard it as a fittingly outrageous cap-sheaf to his general dirty and outre appearance. But little cares Mr. Fireman; he runs the fire-box of that "machine." He feels pride in the whole engine; and when he sees any one admiring its polished surface, gleaming so brightly in the sun, flashing so swiftly by the farm-houses on the road (in each of which Mr. Fireman has acquaintance of the opposite sex, to whom he must needs swing his handkerchief), he feels a glow of honest satisfaction; and the really splendid manner in which his efforts have caused it to shine--which is evidently one great reason for the admiration bestowed upon it--so fills him with self gratulation that, in his great modesty, which he fears will be overcome if he stays there much longer watching people as they admire his handiwork, and he be led to tell them all about it, how he scrubbed and scoured to bring her to that pitch of perfection--he turns away, and begins to pitch the wood about in the most reckless manner imaginable; yet every stick goes just where he wants it.

His aspirations (and he has them, my lily-handed friend, as well as you, and perhaps, though not so elevated, more honorable than yours) are, that he may, by attending to his own duties, so attract the attention of the ones in authority that he may be placed in positions where he can learn the business, and, by and by, himself have charge of an engine as its runner. It does not seem a very high ambition; but, to attain it, he undergoes a probation seldom of less than three, frequently of seven or eight years, at the hardest kind of work, performed, too, where dangers are thick around him, and his chances to avert them very slim. His duties are manifold and various; but long years of attendance to them makes them very monotonous and irksome, and he would soon weary of them, did not the hope of one day being himself sole master of the "iron horse," actuate him to renewed diligence and continued efforts to excel. He is on duty longer than any other man connected with the train. He must be on hand before the engine comes out of the shop, to start a fire and see that all is right about the engine. Usually he brings it out upon the track; and then, when all is ready, he begins the laborious work of throwing wood; which amounts to the handling of from four to seven cords of wood per diem, while the engine and tender are pitching and rolling so that a "green-horn" would find it hard work to stand on his feet, let alone having, while so standing, to keep that fiery furnace supplied with fuel. The worse the day, the more the snow or rain blows, the harder his work. His hands become calloused with the numerous wounds he receives from splinters on the wood. He it is who has to go out on the runboard and oil the valves, while the engine is running full speed. No matter how cold the wind may blow, how rain, hail, sleet, or snow may beat down upon him, covering every thing with ice, nor how dark the night, out there he must go and crawl along the slippery side of the engine to do his work. At stations he must take water, and when at last the train arrives at its destination, and others are ready to go home, he must stay. If a little too much wood is in the fire-box, he must take it out, and then go to work cleaning and scouring the dust and rust from off the bright work and from the boiler. Every bit of cleaning in the cab and above the runboard, including the cylinders and steam-chest, must be done by him; and any one who will look at the fancy-work on some of our modern locomotives, can judge something of what he has to do after the day's work on the road is done. Every thing is brass, or covered with brass; and all must be kept polished like a mirror, or the fireman is hauled over the coals.

For performing these manifold duties, he receives the magnificent sum of (usually) thirty dollars per month; and he knows no Sundays, no holidays--on long roads, he scarcely knows sleep. He has not the responsibility resting on him that there is upon the engineer; but it is required of him, when not otherwise engaged with his duty of firing, to assist the engineer in keeping a lookout ahead. His position is one of the most dangerous on the train, as is proved by the frequent occurrence of accidents, where only the fireman is killed; and his only obituary, no matter how earnest he may have been, how faithful in the performance of his duties, is an item in the telegraphic reports, that _a fireman was killed_ in such a railroad smash. He may have been one of nature's noblemen. A fond mother and sweet sisters may have been dependent on his scanty earnings for their support. No matter; the great surging tide of humanity that daily throngs these avenues of travel, has not time to inquire after, nor sympathy to waste upon, a greasy wood-passer, whom they regard as simply a sort of piece in the machinery of the road, not half so essential as a valve or bolt, for if he be lost, his place can be at once supplied; but if a bolt or other essential piece of the iron machinery give out, it will most likely cause a vexatious delay. Once in a while a fireman performs some heroic act that brings him into a momentary notoriety, and opens the eyes of the few who may be cognizant of the case, to the fact that, on a railroad, all men are in danger, and that the most humble of them may perform some self-sacrificing deed that will, at the expense of his own, save many other lives.

In a collision that occurred at a station on one of the roads in New York state, the engineer, a relative of some of the managers of the road, who had fired only half so long as the man then firing for him, jumped from the engine, leaving it to run at full speed into the hind end of a train standing on a branch track, of which the switch was wrong; not doing a single thing to avert or mitigate the calamity; fearing only for his own precious neck, which a hemp cravat would ornament, to the edification of the world. The fireman sprang at once to the post vacated by the engineer, reversed the engine, opened the sand-box valve, and rode into the hind end of that train; losing, in so doing, a leg and an arm. He has been most munificently rewarded for his heroism, being now employed to attend a crossing and hold a flag for passing trains, and receiving the princely compensation of twenty-five dollars per month; while the engineer, who deserted his post and left all to _kind Providence_, is running on the road at a salary of seventy-five per month.

THE BRAKEMAN.

A very humble class of railroad men, a class that gets poorer pay in proportion to the work they do and the dangers they run than any other upon a road, are the brakemen. Though perhaps less responsibility rests upon them, they are placed in the most dangerous position on the train; they are expected to be at their posts at all times, and to flinch from no contingency which may arise. The managers of a railroad expect and demand the brakemen to be as prompt in answering the signals of the engineer as the throttle-valve is obedient to his touch.

Reader, were you ever on a train of cars moving with the wings of the wind, skimming over the ground as rapidly as a bird flies, darting by tree and house, through cuttings and over embankments? and did you ever feel a sudden jar that almost jerked you from your seat? At the same time did you hear a sharp, sudden blast of the whistle, ringing out as if the hand that pulled it was nerved by the presence of danger, braced by a terrible anxiety to avoid destruction? It frightened you, did it not? But did you notice the brakeman then? He rushed madly out of the cars as if he thought the train was going to destruction surely, and he wished, before the crash came, to be out of it. No, that was not his object. He caught hold of the brakes and, with all the force and energy he was capable of exerting, applied them to the swift-revolving wheels, and when you felt the gradual reduction of the speed under the pressure of the brakes, you began to feel easier. But what thought the brakeman all the time? Did he think that, if the danger ahead was any one of a thousand which might happen? if another train was coming towards them, and they should strike it? if a disabled engine was on the track, and a fool, to whom the task was intrusted, had neglected to give your train the signal? if the driving rain had raised some little stream, or a spark of fire had lodged in a bridge and the bridge was gone? if some loosened rock had rolled down upon the track; or if the track had slid; or if some wretch, wearing a human form over a hellish soul, had lifted a rail, placed a tie on the track, to hurl engine and car therefrom?--if any of these things were ahead and the speed of your train be too great to stop, and go plunging into it, did he realize that he was the first man to be caught; that those two cars between which he stood, straining every nerve to do his share to avert the catastrophe, would come together and crush him, as he would crush a worm beneath his tread? If he did, he was doing his duty in that dangerous place, risking his life at a pretty cheap rate--a dollar a day--wasn't he? And still these men do this every day for the same price and at the same risk, while the passengers regard them as necessary evils, who _will_ be continually banging the doors. So they pass them by, never giving them a kind word, scarcely ever thanking them for the many little services which they unhesitatingly demand of them, and, if the passenger has ridden long, and the jolting and jarring, the want of rest, or wearisome monotony of the long ride has made him peevish, how sure he is to vent his spite on the brakeman, because he thinks him the most humble, and therefore the most unprotected man on the train. And the brakeman endures it all; for if he answers back a word, if he asserts his manhood--which many seem to think he has sold for his paltry thirty dollars a month--why, he is reported at the office, a garbled version of the affair is given, and the brakeman is discharged.

But have a care, O! most chivalrous passenger, you who fly into such a passion if your dignity is offended by a short answer. You may quarrel with a man having a soul in him beside which yours would look most pitifully insignificant; one who, were the dread signal to sound, would rush out into the danger, and, throwing himself into the chasm, die for you, amid all the appalling scenes of the chaotic wreck of that train of cars, as coolly, as determinately, as unselfishly as the Stuart queen barred the door with her own fair arm, that her liege lord might escape. And then, methinks, you would feel sad when you saw his form stretched there dead, all life crushed out of it--once so comely, now so mangled and unsightly--and thought that, with that poor handful of dust from which the soul took flight so nobly, you had just been picking a petty quarrel.

If you have read the accounts of railroad accidents as carefully and with such thrilling interest as I have, you will remember many incidents where brakemen were killed while at their post, discharging their duty. Several have come under my immediate observation. On the H. R. R. one night I was going over the road, "extra," that is, I was not running the engine, but riding in the car. I heard a sharp whistle, but thought it was not of much consequence, for I knew the engineer's long avowed intention, to never call the brakemen to their posts when the danger could be avoided; he said he would give them a little chance, not call them where they had none. The brakemen all sprang to their posts; the one in the car where I was I saw putting on his brake; the next instant, with a shock that shook every thing loose and piled the seats, passengers, stove, and pieces of the roof all into a mass in the forward end of the car, the engine struck a rock, the cars were all piled together, and I was pitched into the alley up close to the end which was all stove in. I felt blood trickling on my hands, but thought it was from a wound I had received on my head. I soon found that it was from Charley McLoughlin, the brakeman with whom I had just been talking, and whom I saw go to his post at the first signal of danger. The whole lower part of his body was crushed, but he yet lived. We got him out as soon as possible and laid him beside the track on a door, then went to get the rest of the dead and wounded. We found one of the brakemen dead, his head mashed flat; the other one, Joe Barnard, was hurt just as Charley was, and as they were inseparable companions, we laid them together. I took their heads in my lap--we did not try to move them, as the physicians said they could not live--and there for four long hours I sat and talked with those men whose lives were surely, but slowly ebbing away. In life they were as brothers, and death did not separate them, for they departed within fifteen minutes of each other. But notice this fact--the brakeman who was found dead, still held in his hand the shattered brake-wheel, and Joe Barnard was crushed with both hands still grasping his. Yet these men were "only brakemen!"

A DREAM IN THE "CABOOSE."

A first thought of the life of an engineer would be that it was a life peculiarly exhilarating; that in the mind of an engineer the rush and flow of strong feeling and emotion would constantly be felt; that the every-day incidents of his life would keep his nerves continually on the stretch, and that lassitude would never overtake him. But such is not the case. I know of no life that a man could live which would more certainly produce stagnation than it. Every day, in sunshine or storm, cold or heat, light or darkness, he goes through the same scenes, bearing the same burdens of care and responsibility, facing the same dangers, braving grim death ever and all the time until he loses fear, and the novelty of the at first exhilarating effort to conquer space and distance, and make time of no account, wears away, till danger becomes monotonous, and only an occasional scene of horror checkers the unchanging current of his every-day life. He knows every tie on the road; he knows that here is a bad curve, there a weak bridge, from either of which he may at any time, by the most probable of possibilities, be hurled to his death; and still every day he rides his "iron horse," of fiery heart and demon pulse, over the weak places and the strong, posted at the very front of the procession, which any one of a thousand contingencies would make a funeral train. He passes the same stations, blows his whistle at the same point, sees the same men at work in the same fields, with the same horses that they used last year and the year before. Two lines of iron stretch before him, to demand and receive his earnest scrutiny every day, precisely as they have every day for years.

He meets the same men on other trains at the same places, and bids them "hail" and "good-bye" with the same uncertainty of ever seeing them again that he has always felt, and which has grown so sadly wearisome.

He alone knows and appreciates the chances against him, but his daily bread depends upon his running them, so with a resolute will that soon gets to be the merest trusting to luck, he goes ahead, controlled by the same rules, which always have the same dreary penalties attached to them when violated,--a maimed and disfigured body for the balance of his days, or a sudden and inglorious death.

If one of his intimate companions gets killed, he can only bestow a passing thought upon it, for he has not been unexpectant of it, and he knows full well that the same accident may at the same place make it his turn next, as he passes over the same road every day, running the same chances, as did his friend just gone.

I had, while I was on the H---- road, a particular friend, an engineer. We were inseparable, and were both of us, alike, given to fits of despondency, at which times we would, with choking dread, bid each other farewell, and "hang around" the telegraph office to hear the welcome "O K" from the various stations, signifying that our trains had passed "on time" and "all right."

One Saturday night, when my engine was to "lay over" for the Sunday at the upper end of the road, I determined to go back to N----. The only train down that night, was the one o'clock "night freight," which Charley, my friend, was to tow with the "Cumberland," a heavy, clumsy "coal-burner." I went to the engine-house, and sat down with Charley, to smoke and talk till his "leaving time" came. He had the blues that night, and after we had talked awhile, I had them too. So we sat there slowly puffing our pipes, recalling gloomy tales of our own, and of others' experience; telling of unlucky engines (a favorite superstition with many engineers), and of unlucky men, and of bad places on the road, weak bridges, loose rails, shelving rocks, and bad curves, until we had got ourselves into the belief that nothing short of a miracle could possibly enable even a hand-car to pass over the road in any thing like safety. Had any of the passengers who daily passed over the road, in the comparative safety of its sumptuous coaches, been there and heard our description of the road, I guess they would have taken lodgings at the nearest hotel, sooner than have ridden over the road that night, towed by that engine, which Charley had more than once characterized as a "deathtrap" and "man-killer," and proven her right to the name by alluding to the four men she had killed. At length the hours had dragged themselves along, and the "Cumberland" was coupled to the train. As I started for the "Caboose," Charley said to me, "The 'Cumberland' always was and always will be an unlucky engine, and blamed if I know but she will kill me to-night, so let's shake hands, and good-bye." We shook hands, and I clambered into the "Caboose," having, it must be confessed, a sneaking kind of good feeling to think that I was at the rear instead of the front end of those forty cars, especially as the engine was one that, despite my reason and better judgment, I more than half-believed was "cursed" with "ill-luck;" by which I mean, she was peculiarly liable to fatal accidents. Well, I curled myself up on one of the seats and prepared for sleep; not, though, in just the frame of mind I would choose in order to secure "pleasant slumbers" and "sweet dreams." At first my sleep was fitful; the opening of the door, as the hands frequently went out or came in; the cessation of the jar and rumble when the train stopped; the changing of position as I tossed about in my fitful sleep--these all would wake me. At last, however, I dropped to sleep, and slept long and soundly. Strange dreams, fraught with terror, filled with wild and fantastic objects, danced over and controlled my mind. I was placed in positions of the most awful dread; I was on engines of inconceivable power, powerless to control them, and they ran with the velocity of light into long trains laden with smiling women and romping children, whose shrieks mingled with the curses of their husbands and fathers, who said it was my fault, and cursed me to lingering tortures. Then the scene would change. I would be on a long straight track, mounted on an engine which seemed a devil broken loose, and bent on a mission of death which I could not stir to stop; while away in the distance was another engine, coming towards me, and I felt, by intuition, that it was Charley, and then I would see his white and pallid face, clammy with the sweat of terror, and his long black hair swept back from his forehead, while agony, despair, and the miserable, hopeless fear of instant and horrible death shone with lurid, fierce, unnatural fire from his dark blue eye, and I seemed to know that every one I held dear was on his train; that my sisters were there looking out of the window, gaily laughing and watching for the next station, where my train was to meet theirs, and my mother sat smilingly by, looking on, while other friends that I loved were saying kind words of me, who, in another instant, would be upon them with a fiendish, fiery engine of death. I would shut my eyes, and the scene would change again. I would be skirting the edges of deep, dark precipices, and while I looked, shuddering, down into the dark and sombre depths, my whole train would go over the bank and down, down--still farther down it plunged--till I seemed to have gone far enough for the nether depths. A sudden tremendous jar woke me, and I sprang to my feet from the floor to which I had been hurled, and found myself in utter darkness. For an instant I did not know where I was, but I soon recalled myself and started out of the "Caboose," fully convinced that some awful calamity had happened to the train, and bound to know, in the shortest possible time, whether Charley or any of the rest of the hands were hurt. I soon saw a light, and hallooed to know what was the matter. "Nothing," answered Charley's well-known voice. "Well," says I, "you make a deuce of a fuss doing nothing." I told him how I was awakened, and we started back to see what was the matter. We found that, in throwing the "Caboose" in upon the branch track, he had given it too much headway, and there being no brakeman on it to check its speed, it had hit the tie laid across the rail with sufficient force to throw me from the seat and put out the only lamp in the car. So we went home, laughing heartily; but I never prepared myself for another midnight ride in the "Caboose" of a freight train by telling horrid stories just before I started.

AN UNMITIGATED VILLAIN.