had the Wallace household known such utter silence
at "the yards." They missed the rush and roar of the great express
engines, the clatter of the puffing little "switchers," the rumble and
jar of the heavy freight trains, the dancing will-o'-the-wisp signals of
the trainmen's lights, the clang of bell, and hiss of steam. There was
something unnatural in the stillness, something almost oppressive, and
mother and the girls, glad ordinarily to have both Jim and Fred at home,
seemed weighted with a sense of something strained and troublous in the
situation. Jim had been a railway man for several years, rising by
industry, intelligence, and steadiness, to his present grade as a
freight conductor. Fred, the younger, held a clerkship in the great
"plant" of the Amity Wagon-works. He had received a good High-School
education, while Jim's wages, added to his father's, had supported the
family and built the little suburban home. The elder brother's hands
were browned by long contact with grimy brake and blistering, sun-baked
car roofs. The younger's were white and slender--hands that knew no
labor other than the pen. Both boys were athletic and powerful; Jim,
through long years in the open air and active, energetic life, Fred,
through systematic training in the gymnasium and the camp and armory of
the National Guard, for Fred had been three years a soldier in a "crack"
city regiment, and the corporal's chevrons on his uniform were his
greatest pride. Even in boy days he had begun his training in the cadet
corps of the public school, where military drill, especially the
"setting-up" system of the regular army, had been wisely added to the
daily course of instruction; and while Jim's burly form was a trifle
bowed and heavy, Fred's slender frame was erect, sinewy, and, in every
motion, quick and elastic. "Jim could hug the breath out of you, Fred,
like a thundering big bear if he once got his arms around you, and Fred
could dance all around and hammer you into pulp, Jim, while you were
trying to grip him," was the way the father expressed it, and old
Wallace knew young men in general and his own boys in particular as well
as might be expected of the clear-eyed, shrewd-headed veteran that he
was. He himself had served the Great Western railway faithfully from the
days when it was only the struggling Lake Shore, and now as a
first-class mechanic in the repair shops he was a foreman whom officials
and operators alike respected. He had l