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and taking down the hook raked over the fire, threw on some coal and awaited developments. In a short time the hand began to slowly retrace its course and I, for one, was glad to see it near its required mark. The brakeman stepped down with a twinkling eye and I always surmised that as Tom resumed his seat a wink passed between them.

Three weeks had passed and I asked leave to "lay in a trip" which was granted. I told mother in the evening I should call on Miss Murdock, a lady to whom I had been engaged for several months, and asked her to accompany me. I was rather flustrated to see with what readiness my invitation was accepted, but having once asked her there was no other way than to take her along.

We arrived at Miss Murdock's boarding house about 8 o'clock and found her alone. Her parents had both died when she was a small child and there had been hardly money enough left to take care of her until she reached a working age. She and mother were very fond of one another and I was only too anxious for the time to come when I could earn wages enough to make her my wife, but on that very day I had decided in my own mind to give up my work. Two or three times I had been on the point of handing in my time and some good man in the crew would say "Stick her out, John," so I had stayed on.

The work was harder than I had thought and I had hardly had a whole night's sleep in three weeks. Therefore, my mind was determined. I would tell mother (from whom I had kept it) and Eva, together, and then I should feel better. I was just turning over in my mind what words to use when Eva shyly said, "John, I hope you will not think me bold but your mother and I"-here she was interrupted by my mother.

"Yes, John, I want you and Eva to get married and come home to live. Eva has no home of her own and you have a place where you will later be promoted, and your father and I were married when we were just your age. We have all talked it over."

"Without consulting me, but" said I"There is no use in saying anything at all. Papa says he will board you until you get a start. Now, John, this is leap year, what is your answer?" asked my mother eagerly.

What could I do? She knew I loved Eva, else she would never have asked me, and of course I had no excuse and before the evening was over the date and many arrangements for the wedding were made.

Just as we left, my mother asked me to kiss Eva good-night to seal the compact,

and I went home happy and unhappy.

I could not give up my job now, that was sure, but I had something to make my heart lighter and I went at the work now with a double purpose,-to make mother happy and provide a home for the one I loved.

On our fifth wedding anniversary, Eva suggested that we invite the immediate family in to spend the evening and said she had a surprise for me. After they arrived and we were all seated in the parlor, she said:

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'John, do you know why your mother wanted you to get married so young?"

I admitted that I had always wondered, and she said:

"Because we heard you were sick of your job and we wanted you to stay and not be laughed at. I knew if you had me you would have to work and I think I suggested it to her. We planned it together and the reason we didn't tell you a long time ago was because we wanted to be sure you were going to stay before we told you.

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We all laughed heartily and I said:

"I knew it was the best thing that could ever have happened to me. Now I have a surprise."

Eva looked at me with a wondering expression.

"Have you been keeping a secret from me?" she asked.

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"Not long," I answered, taking out my watch. Only an hour and eleven minutes."

"What is it?" was asked in chorus.

"Well," I said, "when I passed the office tonight, Mr. Brown called me in and told me I had been promoted today to an engineer. I studied and took my examinations last summer when you women were away, for I knew if I passed it would be the best anniversary present I could give to the ones who helped me earn it."

The Emergency Man.

BY EDGAR WHITE.

An eastbound train on the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad was splitting the night air in a vain attempt to recall an hour's time lost on the west end of the division. But for one circumstance the situation would not have been serious. In the rear coach were the president and two directors of the road. It was of the highest importance that they reach St. Louis on time in order to make connections with the Iron Mountain for Memphis, where an important meeting was to be held looking to the consolidation of some of the lines to the Gulf. The Hannibal & St. Joseph officials might

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GENERAL COMMITTEE OF ADJUSTMENT N. Y. C. & H. R. R.R., AND N. Y. N. H. & H. R.R., DEC. 1, 190

Top Row-John Terry, Div. 169, W. M. Alling. Div. 77, C.W.Fisk, Div.57. E.E. Buckley, Div.288, J.P. Riley, Div. 152, N. B. Parrish, Div.77 J. M. McCann. Div.635, C. F. Hoyt, Div.312,
W.H. Brewer, Div. 235. P.A. Batch, Div. 348, J.A. Powell, Div. 312. J.R.Fitzgerald, Div.64. C.E. Wilkie, Div. 328, G.D. Cook, Div. 58, CH. Whamer. Div. 172, H.T.Hoyt, Div. 205,
A.J. Fers. Div. 244. M. H.Strauss, Div. 424, M. Flannery, Div. 421. A.F. McFarland, Div. 312, E. Sullivan, Div. 227, E. W. Hurley, A. G. C. E., C.R. Beebe, Div. 18.
C. D. Moore, Div. 205. D. Vaughan, Div.77,F.S.Evans.Chr.G.C.of A.N. H.System, J. M. Watson, Ch.G.C.of A.N.Y.C.System.A.M. Carroll, Div.46, HollandVan Vorst, Div. 14.
G. H. Witherell, Div. 77.
L. L. Mitchell, Div. 312, L. Brisette, Div. 145.
E. McCarthy, Div. 441.

have wired the Iron Mountain folks to hold their train, but it happened that the interests of the southern road were not in harmony with those of the northern Missouri line, and the request would have been politely ignored. Some 75 miles west of the division point the president wired the superintendent the necessity for prompt action when the locomotives were changed.

The locomotive on the limited was sending a fountain of steam against the black sky when the train pulled into the passenger sheds at Brookfield, an hour and ten minutes to the bad. The officials hurriedly passed out to the platform and sought the superintendent.

"Whom have you in the front end, Pat?" asked President Hartwell.

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"I took a man off the Chicago run,' said the superintendent; "he'll get you through."

Tell him I'd rather have the train ditched than to miss out on this deal." "He understands the situation, sir, I'll go down the line with you.”

"Good!" The superintendent entered the private car with the officials.

No. 1206, an immense mass of steel and iron, stood in the somber majesty of its great power on the side track as the locomotive of the west division was uncoupled and passed on down to the yards. "We lost out west of Cameron, Felix," said the engineer of the derelict locomotive; "it had been raining on up from the river and the wheels slipped like they were greased."

The slight man in the blue overalls, to whom the remark was addressed, made no reply but looked down the platform for the signal; then he gently rolled his big machine up and coupled on to the front end of the limited. The hurrying baggage and express men soon completed their labors and the conductor waved his lantern. The long train was started without jerking and began to roll slowly out of the yards. The magnates in the rear car frowned.

"Does he know we are in a hurry?" asked Hartwell.

The superintendent bowed. The president bit viciously at an unlighted cigar. Far out in front the gasps from the short stack were coming quicker and quicker and a shower of bright sparks rattled noisily against the large windows of the palace car. Still, to the impatient men who had a fortune at stake it seemed the engineer was criminally tardy in "getting busy."

The train passed on to the prairie at a rate not exceeding thirty miles an hour as there was a gradual up grade. There were twelve heavy cars behind him and the engineer of the east division was

feeling his way. He knew that he had 175 miles ahead of him and that he had to reach out and bring to earth that fatal 70 minutes before the journey was completed. Like a figure carved from blackened marble he sat on his seat box between the great boiler and the side of the cab, one hand easing out the long, slender lever and the other resting on the brass air valve. The electric lights on the cab showed a pressure of 205 pounds on the steam gauge and Barney, the stoker, toiled sturdily, passing the coal to the white hot cavern below with his big scoop. Far down the line the movable flashlight in front of the short stack brought into weird relief the route of travel, the swaying barbwire fence and the ocean-like streach of prairie.

The smoothly rolling cars began to gather momentum, almost imperceptibly. The officials smoked in silence, now and then glancing out the window at the blackness. The center lamps began to clatter as the cars gently swayed.

"He's striking the gait," murmured the president, as he raised a window and pulled out his watch.

The others consulted their time pieces as the president called off the mile posts. The train was found to be running at 40 miles an hour. At this point it slowed up for the network of switches through the coal town of Bevier. The president returned his watch to his pocket and said, gloomily:

"Boys, I'm afraid the jig is up. He'll never make it. I wish we could have got them to postpone the meeting for a day.

"He'll make it," said the superintendent.

"Humph!" ejaculated Hartwell, skeptically. At Macon, a town stationed exactly on the divide of the state, the limited had retrieved none of the lost time. The point was 35 miles out of Brookfield and a gradual ascent nearly every foot of it. As the clearance signal was given the superintendent's eyes lit up.

"Now, Mr. Hartwell," he said, "get out your watch."

The president raised the window ́again and looked indifferently upon the roadside. The train was now rushing through Middlefork bottoms, and up a slope of country where the pioneers had fought Indians and made history. The rock-ballast road was as level as a parlor floor. Within ten minutes after leaving Macon the double compound under the caressing touch of the silent man on the seat box was tearing through the forests like the onward sweep of a cyclone.

The first ten miles out of the town on the divide were made in eight and onehalf minutes. Then the wheels began to hum and the sparks whirled viciously

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against the ventilators. The next ten miles were made in eight minutes; the next in seven and finally the president announced with some consternation, that the train had covered ten miles in six minutes. Others kept note of the mile posts and confirmed this statement.

The superintendent smiled.

"Felix knows how to run an engine," he said.

"Yes," said Hartwell, "but I hope he also knows enough not to run over the curves."

In all his life he had never traveled at the speed he was going then and for awhile he seriously thought of telling the superintendent to order it reduced. The veloc

the west division. The officials figured that if the speed were maintained into St. Louis, allowing for a slight halt at the old Monroe Junction, the train would reach Union station exactly on time.

With the first streak of dawn across the Illinois forest came the atmosphere from the river. All nature was quiet, peaceful and beautiful. Man only toiled and raged.

The limited swept into Monroe like a hurricane, a great volume of spray from the steam dome crashing against the air, and the air-brake reservoirs heavily panting. There was a wait for an up-river freight train, which had been carelessly permitted to pull out of Upper Alton ahead of the limited.

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FIVE MEMBERS OF THE G. C. OF A., LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE SYSTEM.

N. W. Duvall, G. S. & T., Div. 365. T. J. Bissett, Gen. Chr. G. C. of A., Div. 156. A. K. Hall, Div. 140. A. M. Pierce, Div. 463, Committee on Appeals. C. M. Moore, Chr., Div. 215.

ity was so terrific that one could not hold his head out of the window without great discomfort. A committee of travelers in the coach just ahead passed into the officials' car and stated that the forward coaches were swinging so on the curves that it was feared they would not hold to the rails and they demanded to know whether there was a wild man or a lunatic in the cab. The superintendent mollified them as best he could and they returned to their car.

Out of every ten miles traversed the double compound was placing four minutes against the 70 that had been lost on

With only 50 miles to go the loss of ten minutes was a sinister thing. The officials glared through their plate glass windows and said un-Christianlike things about the belated goods train.

It seemed an interminable time before the double-compound struck the maximum after leaving old Monroe. Daylight was coming on and with it the hour for the departing of the Iron Mountain train. Forgetful of his experience a short way up the line, Hartwell suggested that the superintendent go forward and inspire the engineer to greater effort.

"It would be useless," said the superin

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