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Show ENGINEER JIM. Every boy likes to read "a rattling railroad story." Here is a good one of unidentified source: The hero of this "tale of the rail" was Engineer Jim Stevens on 'the Air Line Railroad, "the down express." He was very proud of bis locomotive. Xo. On. He would sometimes boast how quickly he could stop it. He would stand in his cab as royal as a king on his throne. Before him were the steel levers with their shining handles. He knew just which one to wofk. He knew just how to make the shrill locomotive whistle shriek out "Down brakes!" He would make hi? quick, strong hands fly there, send the sharp echoes flying, shut off ihe steam and bring to a prompt halt the. ponderous, pon-derous, crushing mass of iron on the iron track. . He did it oh. once he could not do it ! But I must not anticipate. lie got his name. "Big Jim," from Frank Davenport, the jolly hackman. Frank knew everybody, every-body, even people that he had never seen before. He had. though, once met this big. burly, muscular muscu-lar engineer who ruled like a king in his grimy cab. "Hullo!" shouted Frank when the "down express" ex-press" came in one day. "If there isn't 'Big Jim.' the new engineer. He will make that train walk." Walk?' Say run, shoot, fly! How Big Jim did beat the record made by all previous trains! And his "leetlc gal" what about her i That was Effie Stevens. Her mother having died. Effie lived with an aunt, the engineer' ssis-ter. ssis-ter. One day. the second after he appeared as the kind ofthe "down express." there came to the sta-I sta-I tion a child with a lunch basket. The blue of the j sea was in her eyes. The sunshine was in her hair. I The music of the wind singing in a pine forest I -was in her voice. She came to the station and i waited patiently till locomotive Xo. GO roared into the building, saying in a voice of thunder: "I am here." and then she took her place not far from Xo. GO. The engineer saw her. leaped from the cab. seized her in his arms, lifted her. kissed her and then went back, a good-sized lunch in his pocket. From the cab he kissed a grimy hand to her, and she kissed hers in return. Hers was as white as a snowflake. "Biff Jim's leetle gal, I know," declared Frank Davenport. Xobody disputed what Frank said he knew. It wouldn't have changed his opinion if any one had disagreed. The hackman had overheard over-heard a conversation between the engineer and his 'leetle gal.' . "I prayed for you on the road, papa, tins morning," morn-ing," she said, playing with his hair and twisting a stout iron-gray lock about her finger. Big'.lim paid: "That's right." -jt it's awful risky, papa. Do you pray.?" 8 Biff Jim set her down. "Guess the cab of old GO and me can get along." Then he went to his cab, and for some reason he did not kiss his hand to her that day. The snowflakes. though, fluttered in ihe air. He only said good bv. She noticed it, and when she turned away her blue eves were dashed with a sudden rain. "1 tell ye," declared Frank, to a brother hack-man hack-man "that'tecbed me way down in the boots." The next day at the hour for the arrival of the express Effie was at the station watching for it. She was not in the habit of crossing tracks, but she had an extensive acquaintance among the dogs ' ' "' g-r .mm... i 11 .1111. i i'WwfyW.l,rllW of the. place, and a "Brownie" who had suddenly been lamed was dangerously exposing his shag- ! handsome feet, and Effie's -sympathy was' so violently vio-lently aroused that, trying to call the dog away from the danger, she thoughtlessly ran a great risk herself. That very hackman whom Frank Daven-; port had often classed "a clumsy blunderbuss" pro- ' ceeded to prove it. lie dropped a trunk be was: carrying, and down it came with crushing weight j upon a weak board in the flooring of the station, j The trunk would not yield, and the weak board was forced to do so. A big. ragged hole was left there.! Avhich the station agent proposed to mend as soon as the trains would let him. j Big Jim's keen eyes saw it as Xo. GO. in its;; usual roaring style, swept into the station, thun-i' dering away, "I am here!" i It annoyed him to see anything ''not just' right" 1 along the track, and he growled out an oath. IIej had been in n growling mood ever since yesterday's leavetaking of bis "leetle gal." He had been very j much dissatisfied with himself. 1 He had reasoned with himself; "Why shouldn't I pray? My wife. us?d to tafk to me." It would have to be a prayer for mercy." That makes a good first round in a sinner's supplication. Big Jim might have seen. Because he had all this lime been unwilling to breathe a syllable sylla-ble of petition, he was the more dissatisfied with himself. When he saw that ragged, deep wound; in the floor, that oath in part showed dissatisfac- j tion with the man uttering it. His soul was in a; turmoil, and that exclamation was a kind of a era- ! ter whereby the volcano found a vent. But what j else did be see ? A shaggy, brown dog or some-I thing that a child was chasing off the track, and j this child was Effie, and she stumbled into that horrid bole not more than fifty feet 'ahead of the ' cowcatcher of roaring, thundering Xo. fin. Oh. how he flew about that cab. straining at every level, ! and then letting out such frightfully piercing I shrieks under ihe sooty roof of the old station.! "Down brakes!" Oh. it seemed as if he would go' mad! F He covered his face with bis hands one moment, and the next sprang out of the cab and actually grasped the great iron dragon and tried, to hold it back! I The dragon, though, crashed over something-!, white in that hole, and then it seemed to Big Jim! as if t lie world had come to an end. j Something awful seemed to rise up and strike: him. The engine, the train, the whole railroad seemed to he colliding with him, and he staggered ' as if he had been shot. Then came an awful hush. ; The train had stopped. Everybody in the station. ! everything, the very world seemed to come to this I same bewildering pause, wondering what had hap- ' pened in that ragged hole under the train. The1 next moment, sweet and clear, rang out a child's j voice as Effie crawled out of the bole and towards ner j inner s amis: "Here 1 am, papa. T just lay down." He seized her. He fell upon his knees. He looked up. He sobbed : "O my Cod, forgive a poor shiner. I thank ye. I thank ye!" "I tell you." said Frank Davenport, "there wasn't an eye but what was damp all through that station. I saw it all." |