ells us the thing that we ought to do"--
My wife was a bit religious, and in with the chapel crew.
But I knew she was talking reason, and I said to myself, says I,
"I won't give in like a coward, it's a scare that'll soon go by."

Now, the very next day the missus had to go to the market town;
She'd the Christmas things to see to, and she wanted to buy a gown.
She'd be gone for a spell, for the Parley didn't come back till eight,
And I knew, on a Christmas Eve, too, the trains would be extra late.
So she settled to leave me Johnny, and then she could turn the key--
For she'd have some parcels to carry, and the boy would be safe with me.
He was five, was our little Johnny, and quiet, and nice, and good--
He was mad to go with daddy, and I'd often promised he should.

It was noon when the missus started,--her train went by my box;
She could see, as she passed my window, her darling's curly locks,
I lifted him up to mammy, and he kissed his little hand,
Then sat, like a mouse, in the corner, and thought it was fairyland.
But somehow I fell a-thinking of a scene that would not fade,
Of how I had slept on duty, until I grew afraid;
For the thought would weigh upon me, one day I might come to lie
In a felon's cell for the slaughter of those I had doomed to die.

The fit that had come upon me, like a hideous nightmare seemed,
Till I rubbed my eyes and started like a sleeper who has dreamed.
For a time the box had vanished--I'd worked like a mere machine--
My mind had been on the wander, and I'd neither heard nor seen,
With a start I thought of Johnny, and I turned the boy to seek,
Then I uttered a groan of anguish, for my lips refused to speak;
There had flashed such a scene of horror swift on my startled sight
That it curdled my blood in terror and sent my red lips white.

It was all in one awful moment--I saw that the boy was lost:
He had gone for a toy, I fancied, some child from a train had tossed;
The local was easing slowly to stop at the station here,
And the limited mail was coming, and I had the line to clear.
I could hear the roar of the engine, I could almost feel its breath,
And right on the center metals stood my boy in the jaws of death;
On came the fierce fiend, tearing straight for the center line,
And the hand that must wreck or save it, O merciful God, was mine!

'Twas a hundred lives or Johnny's. O Heaven! what could I do?--
Up to God's ear that moment a wild, fierce question flew--
"What shall I do, O