FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172  
173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   >>   >|  
k. But his spirit was broken, and his nerve was gone. "'T weren't even a hog," he repeated dolefully; "'t were a shote; and you--you of all of 'em--had to help me on." "But how in the whole long road did it happen?" asked 007, sizzling with curiosity. "Happen! It didn't happen! It just come! I sailed right on top of him around that last curve--thought he was a skunk. Yes; he was all as little as that. He hadn't more 'n squealed once 'fore I felt my bogies lift (he'd rolled right under the pilot), and I couldn't catch the track again to save me. Swivelled clean off, I was. Then I felt him sling himself along, all greasy, under my left leadin' driver, and, oh, Boilers! that mounted the rail. I heard my flanges zippin' along the ties, an' the next I knew I was playin' 'Sally, Sally Waters' in the corn, my tender shuckin' coal through my cab, an' old man Evans lyin' still an' bleedin' in front o' me. Shook? There ain't a stay or a bolt or a rivet in me that ain't sprung to glory somewhere." "Umm!" said 007. "What d' you reckon you weigh?" "Without these lumps o' dirt I'm all of a hundred thousand pound." "And the shote?" "Eighty. Call him a hundred pound at the outside. He's worth about four 'n' a half dollars. Ain't it awful? Ain't it enough to give you nervous prostration? Ain't it paralysin'? Why, I come just around that curve--" and the Mogul told the tale again, for he was very badly shaken. "Well, it's all in the day's run, I guess," said 007, soothingly; "an'--an' a corn-field's pretty soft fallin'." "If it had bin a sixty-foot bridge, an' I could ha' slid off into deep water an' blown up an' killed both men, same as others have done, I wouldn't ha' cared; but to be ditched by a shote--an' you to help me out--in a corn-field--an' an old hayseed in his nightgown cussin' me like as if I was a sick truck-horse!... Oh, it's awful! Don't call me Mogul! I'm a sewin'-machine, they'll guy my sand-box off in the yard." And 007, his hot-box cooled and his experience vastly enlarged, hauled the Mogul freight slowly to the roundhouse. "Hello, old man! Bin out all night, hain't ye?" said the irrepressible Poney, who had just come off duty. "Well, I must say you look it. Costly-perishable-fragile-immediate--that's you! Go to the shops, take them vine-leaves out o' your hair, an' git 'em to play the hose on you." "Leave him alone, Poney," said 007 severely, as he was swung on the turn-table, "or I'll--"
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172  
173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
hundred
 

happen

 

wouldn

 

killed

 

ditched

 
cussin
 
dolefully
 

hayseed

 
nightgown
 

soothingly


pretty

 

shaken

 
fallin
 

repeated

 
bridge
 

fragile

 
perishable
 
Costly
 

leaves

 

severely


cooled

 

machine

 

experience

 

vastly

 

irrepressible

 

roundhouse

 

enlarged

 

hauled

 

freight

 

slowly


driver

 
Boilers
 

mounted

 

leadin

 

greasy

 
flanges
 

Waters

 
tender
 

shuckin

 
sailed

playin
 

zippin

 
spirit
 
squealed
 

broken

 

thought

 
bogies
 

Swivelled

 
rolled
 

couldn