Various - Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891

V >> Various >> Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891

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He clanged his shovel on the hard stone floor and rattled the furnace
doors, while Larry tried the steam-cocks and then let the water into the
glass gauges, as he had done many times before.

Then he unlocked the door into the engine-room and left Joe to shovel in
the coal and regulate the draughts.

The engine--or engines, for there were two of the same power whose
pistons turned the same great fly-wheel--glistened a welcome to Larry,
and it seemed to him that they looked brighter even than usual upon this
clear September morning.

He began wiping them off with a handful of cotton waste, adding, if
possible, to the polished brightness of the powerful arms and cylinders;
but, before he had finished the work, a gruff voice caused him to look
up.

"You, is it?" the voice questioned.

The speaker was a young man of twenty-three, who was employed in the
works. Larry had seen him a great many times, for he was always
loitering about in the boiler and engine rooms when his father was
away.

This was contrary to rules, yet Larry, being so much younger, disliked
to order the young man out. But as he saw him standing in the doorway,
then it occurred to him that, if his father was to be absent several
days, it might be better to put a stop to intrusion at once.

"Yes, I'm on duty," Larry answered, resuming his work.

Steve Croly coolly ascended the two or three steps to the floor of the
engine-room, and, picking up a piece of waste, began to rub the polished
cylinder-head which was nearest.

Larry saw that the rag which Croly was using was making streaks on the
polished surface.

"See what you're doing, Steve!" he cried, pointing at the oily smutch.

"Why don't you have some clean waste round here, then?" Croly retorted.
"When I used to run an engine, I had something to clean it with, instead
of using waste after it was soaked full of oil."

"You're not running this engine," said Larry, quietly.

His heart was heating fast; so he was silent a moment before he spoke
again, as he did not wish to speak in an angry tone.

"I think I could manage it about as well as any boy of your age," said
Croly. "It's mighty foolish to trust such an engine as this to a boy. I
heard some of the men talking about it with the super the last time your
old man was off, and I fancy he don't like it very well."

"Perhaps you heard them say something about giving you the job," Larry
responded, with a faint smile.

"It would look more sensible if they did," replied Croly, who had too
much self-conceit to see the point of a joke that was aimed at him.

"Still," Larry answered, with more dignity, "since I _am_ allowed to run
the engine, I shall have to ask you to obey the rules against coming in
here, after this."

"You mean that I can't come in to see the engine?"

"Not without leave. My father wouldn't let you, and you know it.
Hereafter I wish you to keep out when I'm in charge."

Steve Croly's cheeks flushed with anger.

At that moment the hoarse roar of the whistle shook the air, telling
everybody in the busy town that it was time to go to work.

It was not yet time to start the engine, but Croly sprang to the
valve-gear to let on the steam.

CHAPTER II.

The One-Eyed Fireman.

Larry divined the young man's purpose, and he needed no better evidence
that Steve Croly knew very little about an engine than this thoughtless
act.

The youth reached the valve-gear at the same time, and the hands of both
grasped the wheel.

"What are you going to do?" cried Larry, holding on with all his
strength, for the other was trying to turn the wheel.

"I'm going to start the engine. Didn't you hear the whistle? What are
you waiting for?" snapped Croly.

"That was the quarter-whistle; it isn't time to start up yet. And if it
was, you would blow out a couple of cylinder-heads for me by letting on
the steam in that style!"

Larry's face was pale, partly because he thought that the other would
have succeeded in doing the mischief in spite of him. But the determined
face of the boy, coupled with his words, made Croly pause, although he
still allowed his hand to rest on the valve-gear of the great engine.

"You think I don't know enough to start this machine, I suppose," he
said.

"I think if you did know, you wouldn't try to blow out the
cylinder-heads to start with," Larry rejoined.

"You're trying to bluff me now, but you ain't quite old enough to do it.
Just wait till the five-minute whistle blows, and see if I can't start
the machine. I know enough to know that if you let the steam into the
cylinder, she's got to start."

"Something would start, that's certain," said Larry, drily. "But," he
continued, "I don't think you will let the steam on this time. Now, let
go!"

"You're a pretty heavy man to put in as boss of this plant," replied
Steve.

He let go of the valve-wheel, but did not step back. Larry divined that
the fellow intended to wait until he was momentarily away from the gear,
and then persist in his attempt to start the engine.

"I told you to go out," he said, pointing at the door.

"I'm going after the engine is started, and not before," persisted
Croly.

"You know you have no right in this part of the works. They wouldn't
have me loafing in your department, and you must keep out of this!"

"I don't try to send anybody away from my department."

"You would if you had charge of it. In yours there is a foreman and
fifty or sixty men; in this there is only the fireman, under the
engineer, but the engineer is just as much a foreman as the boss of your
department is there."

"You're a boy," sneered Croly, "and when the Tioga Iron Works has boys
put in as bosses, they'll have to turn off the men and run the whole
business with boys. That's all there is to it."

"Would you come here if my father was in charge?"

"It isn't likely I should."

"Then you admit that you have no right here?"

Croly was silent. It was plain enough to Larry what the matter was with
the young man. The truth was he had at some time been temporarily in
charge of a small portable or "donkey" engine, such as are used for
hoisting purposes in stone quarries and in other out-of-door work, and
he was incapable of recognizing the difference between the simple
construction of such a machine and the complicated work in the great
motive-power of the Tioga Iron Works.

Larry was a slow-spoken boy, and correspondingly slow in making a
decision. But when his mind was really made up, he was equally slow to
change it.

He looked at the clock, and then at his own watch. In one minute the
next whistle would blow, and then the engine must be started.

The door leading to the boiler-room had been left open by Croly, and it
had glass panels, through which Joe Cuttle could be seen hard at work,
feeding the hungry furnaces.

Larry dared not wait another moment. He stepped quickly to the door and
called out:

"Joe, come here a moment!"

"Yes, my lad."

The furnace door closed with a clang. The fireman paused to pull at an
iron rod that was suspended against the wall, and the short, quick roar
of the five-minute whistle sounded.

Larry had wheeled about the instant he saw Joe start in obedience to his
call, and he was in time to see Croly again in the act of seizing the
valve-gear.

Without an instant's hesitation, he took hold of the wheel, and held it
firmly, at the same time calling:

"Quick, Joe!"

The big fireman appeared, and his single eye looked from the face of the
boy to that of Croly.

"Did'st thee want me, lad?" he asked, in his gruff tones.

"I want you to take this fellow away from the engine before we're all
blown out of the building to pay for his carelessness," Larry answered.

Cuttle's one eye glared upon Steve Croly, and the latter retreated, with
a look of grim defiance.

"He's away from the engine, lad," said Joe; "and, noo, what else
would'st have me do wi' him? A'll frowd him oot, if thou'd give the
wud."

"If he will go out without help, all right; if not, you may boost him a
little, if you wish to, Joe," said Larry, who had resolved to get rid of
the dangerous loiterer, this time for good, if possible.

"Git owd wi' thee!" ordered the big fireman, making a sudden and furious
feint of seizing the intruder.

This was more than Steve Croly had bargained for. It was very well to
come in and attempt to defy a boy, of whom he was envious, but quite
another thing to face the powerful fireman, whose bare, brown arms and
single gleaming eye lent him a most formidable aspect.

And so, without waiting to see how Larry went to work to set the great
engine in motion, Steve hurried down the steps and across the
boiler-room, not even looking back while he heard the fireman's heavy
boots clumping along the stone floor.

Joe did not attempt to follow the other outside. He turned back, with a
grimace which was intended for a smile, but which made his face look
uglier than ever; and a moment after the whistle sent forth its final
roar, which was the signal for every man and boy in the vast works to be
in his place and to begin work.

Then, with the same silent mirth distorting his features, the fireman
thrust his head into the engine-room and said:

"He tho't he'd go, lad; and A doon't think he'll coom back in a hurry."

Larry had started the great engine, and the silent, powerful strokes
told him that his father had left it in its accustomed perfect order.

The young engineer was still agitated from his encounter with Croly, and
he well knew that this was not likely to be the end of it; but he could
not help but smile in response to Joe Cuttle's evident enjoyment of the
affair.

"He didn't fancy having you put your grip onto him," said Larry, for the
big fireman relished a bit of flattery as well as any one.

"Hi, but didn't he shuffle oot, though, when he heard me after him! A
thought ee'd jump oot his shoes the way he went."

"He won't be likely to come here again, unless he is certain you are out
of the way."

"Mayhap he'll bother thee again, though, when A's gone home. Thou'lt do
well to keep an eye on him."

"I shall take care that he doesn't get in here again, and then I won't
have to be to the trouble to put him out."

Joe Cuttle indulged in another of his silent fits of laughter and then
returned to his furnaces, which he had to feed pretty constantly while
the great engine was using the steam.

The forenoon passed without further incident, and Larry was somewhat
relieved that he had not yet seen the superintendent.

He feared that the latter might ask some questions about his father's
absence which it would be embarrassing not to answer.

"Perhaps mother will tell me something about it when I get home," was
his thought, as he hurried along the narrow street which led to his
dwelling.

But again he was disappointed. His dinner was ready when he came in, but
Mrs. Kendall only sat at the table in silence and attended to his wants.

Larry felt as though he could not restrain the growing feeling of
apprehension caused by his mother's looks and strange reticence. They
were so unlike her usual cheerfulness when he came home from school or
the shop, and he could see that she had grown yet paler than when he
left her at the breakfast table in the morning.

He had only a few minutes before he must return to the shop. Yet he
lingered at the door, cap in hand.

"Mother, what is it?" he pleaded, as she glanced toward him.

"Don't ask me now, Larry," she answered.

Yet there was an irresolute quiver in her voice that told him that she
longed to give him her confidence.

"I ought to know," he persisted. "I'm old enough to run the engine at
the works. Surely you and father ought to trust me to know what troubles
you. Father has gone?"

"Yes, Larry."

"When is he coming back?"

"I don't know. He doesn't know himself. But I hope it will not be long
before we see him again."

"The superintendent will ask me about it, and I don't like to act as if
my folks didn't trust me. If you can't trust me, he won't wish to."

"Your father told you what to answer if you are questioned."

"Mr. Gardner may be satisfied with that for a day or two, but if he
stays away longer than that--"

"Well, well!" Mrs. Kendall interrupted, so impatiently that Larry was
silenced. "If he stays more than a day or two, and they want to know
more about it we'll see what can be done. Now hurry along, dear, and
don't worry."

She reached up her lips and kissed him--for he was much the taller--and
then he hurried back to the shop with a heavy heart.

As he entered the yard, he noticed a knot of the workmen near the
entrance, holding what appeared to be a very secret conference.

CHAPTER III.

Larry in a Quandary.

What lent the air of secrecy to the conference of the workmen was the
fact that they suddenly dispersed with significant winks and nods as
Larry approached.

Another suspicious circumstance was the fact that all, or nearly all,
were hands who had been employed in the works only a few months.

Early in the previous spring fifty or sixty of the Tioga Iron Company's
hands had gone out on a strike, and were promptly discharged, and a new
gang that appeared in town rather opportunely, as it seemed, were hired
to take their places.

The most of those who were talking together so secretly were members of
this gang; and quite prominent among them was Steve Croly.

Joe Cuttle was firing up, the red glare from the glowing furnaces
lighting up his homely face.

"What were those men talking about out by the entrance just now?" Larry
asked, as Joe looked up.

"What men, lad?"

And the single eye was expressionless as it met the questioning glance
of the young engineer.

"Steve Croly was one; most of them were the new hands."

"He might be telling of them how he coom oot of here when A toald him to
goo," said the fireman, with his hideous grin.

"Not very likely, Joe," Larry replied, as he passed on into the
engine-room.

The boy was troubled and mystified now from a new cause.

Joe Cuttle was one of the new men, and, although he had been uniformly
faithful, Larry was sure that he was standing in the doorway of the
fire-room when he first came inside the gates, and that Joe must have
seen those who were only a few yards distant conversing so
mysteriously.

If he saw them, why did he try to evade the fact?

It was this more than any other circumstance that made Larry uneasy. He
did not think the difficulty bore any relation to his encounter with
Steve Croly in the morning, for of course Joe would not try to withhold
any knowledge of that affair.

Not until late in the afternoon did the superintendent visit the
engine-room.

He was a short, brisk man, with small, alert eyes that had a faculty of
seeing more in one minute than most men could take in in half an hour.
His face was dark almost to swarthiness and his cheeks and chin were
smoothly shaven.

He popped his head into the engine-room and called out:

"Hi, there, Kendall! What's the word to-day? Eh, so it's the boy! Well,
come here."

Larry came forward promptly; he knew this brisk gentleman liked him,
and, but for the mysterious trouble at home, he would have rather seen
him than not.

"Your father under the weather to-day, Larry?" was his first question,
while his quick eye noted that the polished floor of the engine-room had
been freshly washed and that the engine itself was doing its ponderous
work with its accustomed silence. Even his ear would have detected a
wrong note in the click and whir of the mechanism, though he would not
have known how to repair the difficulty.

"No," said Larry, in his slow manner. "Father was called away this
morning. I don't think he had time to send you any notice."

"So he sent you, which is the next best thing."

"Yes, sir, thank you."

"I didn't know but he was here till I just looked in. So it appears that
you have kept the machinery running. By-the-way," and Mr. Gardner
stepped up the ascent from the boiler-room and closed the door between,
"does that one-eyed Joe stick to his post?"

The superintendent pursed his lips half humorously as he asked the
question, but Larry felt sure that there was a serious purpose behind
his words.

"Yes, sir. He was here before I was this morning."

"And does he mind your orders just the same as he does when your father
is here?"

"He has so far, sir."

"That is right. Only you know some men don't fancy having a boy put in
as boss over them; and he is one of the new hands, and I didn't know but
he was cranky. Some of them are."

Mr. Gardner pursed his smooth-shaven lips again and was gone.

The moment the door closed after him, Larry wished he had told him of
the strange actions of the group of new hands whom he had seen outside
the entrance that noon.

"But he may know more about it than I do. His eyes see about all there
is to see," the boy reasoned.

And he gave the matter scarce another thought until the great whistle
delivered its parting roar that night.

Although the six o'clock whistle was the signal for stopping the
machinery and for the workmen to go to their homes, the engineer had to
stay half an hour longer to see that the engine and boilers were left in
proper shape for the night; then, when the night watchman came at
half-past six, Larry could go home.

But to-night, after firing up for the last time and blowing the whistle,
Joe Cuttle did not go directly home.

Instead, he went out into the yard and sauntered out toward the further
end of the extensive works where the foundry was located.

Larry, still distrustful, noticed this, and he wished then that he had
mentioned what he had seen that noon to the superintendent.

He stood in the doorway and furtively watched Joe until the latter
disappeared beyond an angle of the building. Then he went in and
meditatively drew the water from the glass gauges, tested the safety
valve, wiped off the engine and finally locked the door of the
engine-room.

His work was done for the day. It yet lacked ten minutes of the
half-hour, which would bring the night watchman, and he waited with his
feeling of uneasiness growing stronger every moment until the time was
up; and the watchman had not come.

"He is usually ahead of time, instead of behindhand," Larry thought.

He went to the door, and nearly collided with some one who was on the
point of entering at the same time.

"How d' do, Larry?" was the off-hand salutation of the newcomer, who was
a short, stout man whom the boy recognized as Gideon Stark, a former
watchman in the works, who had of late been employed as a helper in the
moulding department.

"Where is Jake?" Larry asked.

"Sick," was the sententious reply.

"And you're going to take his place to-night?"

"I'm going to try."

"Does Mr. Gardner know about it?"

"I suppose so. Jake said he sent him word."

"All right, then, if he knows. Only," and Larry looked at the man,
sharply, "you know the engineer can't leave till the watchman comes, and
you're not the watchman unless you're regularly hired."

The short man scowled, and then, as though suddenly thinking a frown was
not the best passport for gaining good-will, he smiled, at the same time
taking out the big bunch of keys which the watchman usually carried.

"I couldn't get them from anybody but Jake, could I?"

"I suppose not."

"Well, if your father has a right to send you to take his place when he
can't come, I think Jake can hire me to take his place when _he's_ sick.
That's about the size of it, my boy. But if you ain't satisfied, you
better go up and see the super. You know the kind of row he makes when
the hands follow him home to ask questions. He always says, if a man
can't think of enough to pester him about in the ten or twelve hours
he's around the works, they needn't try to follow him home with their
complaints."

"I will go to supper, Gid," said Larry, quietly.

But the man followed him to the door.

"Your father sick?" he asked.

"No."

"Gone away?"

"Yes."

"Coming back in the morning?"

"I don't know."

Gid snapped his fingers and forgot himself so far again as to scowl.

"Well, you're cross to-night; I'll say that for you, Larry," he
declared, bluntly, and then turned back into the boiler-room and shut
the door.

"There is something wrong, and no mistake about it," was Larry's
conviction as he hurried home.

He was not too deeply worried to eat--a healthy boy seldom is. His
mother was more cheerful than she had been at dinner-time; or, at least,
she made an effort to appear so.

"Has everything gone well to-day, Larry?" she asked, as he rose from the
table.

"As well as I could expect. There are one or two annoying fellows at the
works, and they're envious because the super lets me run the big engine.
They think I'm too young."

"It is a responsible position, Larry, and it makes me proud of you to
feel that you fill it so well."

"It isn't hard to do; only I have to keep my wits about me. It wouldn't
do to forget anything; and you know they say a boy _will_ forget."

"All boys are not alike, Larry, and your father would not trust you
unless he felt sure you would always be careful."

Larry could not rest at ease until he had assured himself that it was
all right to leave Gid in charge of the works for the night; and,
without telling his mother what his errand was, he went out to find Mr.
Gardner, the superintendent.

The gentleman's house was half a mile distant and fully a mile from the
shops.

Larry hurried thither. To his surprise, Belle, the superintendent's
daughter, came to the door. She was a sweet-faced girl, a year or two
older than Larry, although they had been in school together.

"I was just going out," she said, after greeting him, "and so I answered
your ring. Did you wish to see my father?"

"Yes, if you please," Larry answered.

"Then you will have to wait, and I don't know how long. It was time for
him to be here an hour ago, and he is usually punctual; but he hasn't
come."

She noticed, the troubled look on his face, and asked, a trifle
anxiously:

"Anything the matter, Larry?"

"I--I think not; but if he comes, you may tell him my errand. And I will
go back, and perhaps I may meet him."

Larry explained about the watchman's absence, and then, with a deepening
foreboding at his heart, he hurried back toward the immense buildings of
the Tioga Iron Company.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A VILLAGE HAMPDEN.

by ANTONY E. ANDERSON.

It was Saturday evening, and the slender hands of the clock in the
village schoolhouse were just crossing each other in their eager haste
to tell the Berryville Literary Society that it was nearly ten o'clock,
and time to put out the lights.

The girls had taken the hint when the clock struck the quarter-hour, and
they were chattering like a group of magpies in the darkest corner of
the room as they helped each other with their cloaks and wraps.

The boys had already drawn their overcoat collars up to their ears. They
stood, solemnly and silently, near the door, each one ready to frame the
momentous question, "May I have the pleasure of seeing you home?" when
the girl of his choice should pass. Some of them looked nervous; others
had assumed an air of indifference, which deceived no one.

John Hampden stroked his cap, wishing that girls weren't so slow about
getting ready. But he forgot the girls in a moment, and began to repeat,
under his breath, a few lines of the poem they had been reading that
evening:

"Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood."

He wondered who Hampden was, and what he had done to make him famous
enough to be mentioned in such a poem as Gray's Elegy. Probably a great
general, John decided, who had led vast armies to victory.

John smiled to himself. There surely could not have been two persons
with the same name more utterly unlike, he thought, than the John
Hampden of the poem and John Hampden, the druggist's clerk--"a youth to
Fortune and to Fame unknown."

Just then two girls stopped before him, and John woke from his dreams to
find that the schoolhouse was almost deserted, and that the janitor's
yawning little son had begun to put out the lights.

The girls, no doubt, thought he had smiled at them, and John had
presence of mind enough left to accept the situation. He had meant to
walk home with Matilda Haines, but Matilda had disappeared.

John felt that he hardly knew Margaret Shirley, she had been away in
Boston so long, and he hadn't even been introduced to the young girl
beside her.

"Allow me to present Mr. Hampden, Celia--Mr. John Hampden," said
Margaret, as if in answer to his thought. "My cousin, Miss Kirke, from
Boston, Mr. Hampden."

John felt a trifle afraid of Miss Kirke, she took the introduction so
smilingly and easily. John himself blushed and stammered, and felt more
uncomfortable than ever, when she said, laughingly:

"How delightful to have one of Gray's heroes escort one home, right
after reading his poem! Of _course_, you are a direct descendant of this
famous John Hampden?"

"I don't know," said John, awkwardly; "I'm afraid not. I don't even know
what he did. Mr. Carr didn't explain that passage very fully."

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