Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
As "B" gave his "OK" with the stumbling hesitation of blank astonishment, the line again opened. And at the first word the intense strain broke, and Alex sank forward over the table with a convulsive sob. "Grand, my boy! Grand!" clicked the sounder. It was his father, at Bixton. He had overheard it all. "Grand! That's the word," came the despatcher.
"Although I think we weren't far from it, were we, Jack?" said Alex, at home a few minutes after, when his mother made a similar comparison. "I hope I'll not be as near it again for a long time to come," said Jack, earnestly. "Alex, will you work for me three or four hours to-night?" requested the Bixton night operator of Alex one evening late in October.
"I did that once at Bixton boarded an engine." "Board it! How?" "Run ahead of it, and let it catch us." Saunders sprang for the lantern, lit it, and catching it up, Alex was out the door, and off across the tracks through the still pouring rain for the lights of the section foreman's house. Darting through the gate, he ran about to the kitchen door, and without ceremony flung it open.
It had been "all kinds of a lark," until, unfortunately, the connections became disarranged, tying up the entire eastern end of the line for half an hour. At the recollection of the escapade Alex laughed heartily. Nevertheless he promptly replied, "OK, sir. I won't touch a thing." And the despatcher saying nothing more, he began calling Bixton.
One evening shortly after the beginning of the summer holidays Alex was chatting over the wire with Jack, who was now a full-fledged operator at Hammerton, when the despatching office abruptly broke in and called Bixton. "I, I, BX," answered Alex. "Is young Ward there?" clicked the instruments. "This is 'young Ward."
"He had nothing to do with the trouble you have had here, then?" "He helped me put it down," said the foreman. "No; I only wish we had a few more like him." Alex passed on, thoughtful. At Bixton Big Tony had been no more remarkable for his willingness to work than for his peaceableness. Had he really changed for the better?
"Well, when we boarded the engine at Bixton," explained Alex, getting his breath, "we simply waited at the head of a grade until it was within about two hundred yards of us, then lit out just as hard as we could go, and as she bumped us, we jumped." "All right. We'll do the same."
The fall had been an exceptionally dry one in that section of the middle west, and in consequence several forest fires had occurred, several not far from Bixton. Thus, when a few mornings following Jack's arrival he and Alex proposed a visit to the old house in the woods where Alex had had his thrilling experience with the foreign trackmen, Mrs. Ward objected.
When Jack returned to his wire one of the first remarks he heard was from Alex Ward, at Bixton. "Well, old boy," clicked Alex, "your adventure came, didn't it. And it has me beaten to a standstill." "Nonsense. It was your stunt at Hadley Corners that suggested the trick that got me out of it," declared Jack. "But say, the manager has given me a month's vacation. What do you think of that?"
But better even than this, in Alex's estimation, a few mornings after the chief despatcher called him to the wire and announced his appointment as night operator at Foothills, a small town on the western division. Not long after Alex left Bixton to take up his duties at Foothills, Jack, at Hammerton, also received an advancement.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking