The White Mail

BY

CY WARMAN

NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1899

Copyright, 1899, By Charles Scribner’s Sons. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

TO BRYAN WARMAN WITH A FATHER’S LOVE

CONTENTS

——◆——

[Pg 1]

The White Mail

CHAPTER I

THE PASSING OF THE WATCHMAN

Denis McGuire lived at Lick Skillet, on the ridge between the east and west forks of Silver Creek, midway between Troy and St. Jacobs, twenty-two miles east of St. Louis—Vandalia line. Denis McGuire was the section boss, Tommy McGuire was his only heir, Mrs. McGuire, in addition to being Tommy’s mother, made herself generally useful about the house.

Lick Skillet possessed a saw-mill and a blacksmith shop, and contained, if we count the “nigger” who drove Jim Anderson’s bull team at the mill, twenty-seven souls.

Denis McGuire was an honest Irishman, industrious and sober, except on Saturday [Pg 2]nights, and possibly Sunday. He was unable to read or write, even his own name. Heidelberg, the station agent at St. Jacobs, the eastern terminus of McGuire’s section, kept his books and accounts and the time of the men. In return for this kindness McGuire used to do odd spurts of manual toil for Heidelberg. Sometimes, on a Saturday afternoon, he would set his car off at the end of his run, take his men over (between trains) and shovel snow and saw wood for the agent. In summer, when they had their scythes out, they invariably cut the weeds on the vacant lot between the station and Heidelberg’s house, clipped the lawn, and weeded the garden.

Down by West Silver Creek bridge there was a water tank and a pump, whose motive power was a mule. Close by the bank of the lazy little river stood the watchman’s shanty, narrow, high, and painted red, like the tank, and like hundreds of other shanties that were strung along the line from St. Louis to Indianapolis. Rain or shine old man Connor was always there to show his white light to the engineer of the Midnight Express, and a white flag to the men [Pg 3]on the White Mail in the morning. Beyond the bridge, a round-faced lad of sixteen summers trudged after the mule, who appeared always to be going sidewise, as a boar goes to battle. The round-faced boy was the old watchman’s eldest son, a good-natured, lazy lad who could not whistle a tune, but who was forever singing, “The Hat Me Father Wore.”

When the old man had walked across the bridge and back, with his hands behind him, glanced at the block on the figure-board to see that the tank was full of water, filled his red light and his white light, polished the globes, and set them both burning by the door, he would light his pipe and sit and gaze down into the dirty delinquent river, that came cautiously under the bridge, crept noiselessly away and lost itself in the mournful, malarial forest.

Patient as a monk, solitary as a bandit, lonely as an outcast, the faithful watchman dwelt by the bridge. To the gray-haired driver of the Midnight Express, whose black steed lifted him in a short half hour out of the great American bottoms, by the coal mines at Collinsville[Pg 4] and up to the tablelands of Troy, who strained his eye around the curve at Hagler’s Tank, he showed the friendly white light. “Let her go,” it seemed to say, and the great headlight, trembling down the long grade, flashed a moment on the storm-stained face of the old watchman, and was gone again. Nor did he sleep or nod or close his eyes until the dawn of day; until he had shown the milk-white flag to the men on the White Mail in the morning.

But time will tell upon us all. It told upon the bridge, upon the old man and the mule. In spring the carpenters would come and fix and brace the bridge, that had been racked and strained by ice and flood. In spring the local doctor gave the old man something for his cough, and the old man cut a quaking asp and fixed it in the stall for the mule to gnaw; for its bark was the bitters the mule needed in spring.

At the far end of a raw, cold March the old man fell sick of a fever; typhoid-pneumonia the doctor called it, a cruel combination, either half of which could kill.

[Pg 5]

It was midsummer before he was able to take his post at the bridge again.

In the autumn he had ague that shook his bent frame and made his old bones ache. All night he would watch in the little shanty, all the morning shake with ague, and burn with fever in the afternoon.

When winter came the ague went away, but it left the old man bent and pale. His cough grew worse, and finally a severe cold put him on his back with pneumonia.

When the day set down by the doctor for a change, “one way or the other,” had arrived, the medical expert lost nothing by the prediction. Like the Oracle at Delphi that assured the king that his war would wreck an empire, without saying which empire, the doctor’s reputation was reasonably safe. As the day wore away the old man grew restless. At night the fever came on. At midnight he leaped from his bed, seized the lamp that stood upon the little table near him, and rushed out into the rain-swept night to show it to the driver of the Midnight Express. When the train had crashed over the cattle-guards at the road [Pg 6]crossing, the watchman went back into the house, but refused to go to bed again. “I can’t go yet,” he said, “I must wait for the White Mail.”

They sent for the doctor, and the doctor told them to send for the priest.

When the dawn came the old man opened his eyes.

“Me flag,” he cried, “where is me flag?” and Mrs. Connor brought a clean white flag and placed it in his hand.

Now the White Mail that had come out of the east in the afternoon, crossed Indiana in the evening, and entered Illinois in the night, dropped from the great prairie into the sag at East Creek, lifted again, screamed across the ridge, and plunged down the long hill towards West Creek bridge.

The old watchman, hearing the roar and the whistle, grasped his flag and darted from the door. As he reached the open air the White Mail went roaring past. A white ribbon of steam fluttered from the engine dome and floated far back along the top of the train. The old man flourished his flag, staggered, [Pg 7]swayed, fell into the arms of his wife, and they carried him into the house again.

When the priest came the old watchman was sleeping with his cold hands crossed above his breast and candles burning about his bed.

[Pg 8]

CHAPTER II

AGAIN THE REAPER

At the suggestion of the section boss, the agent asked the roadmaster to put Jimmie Connor on the bridge as watchman, and give little Jack, his brother, the mule and the tank.

After that, instead of the bent form of the old man, the widow saw her boy coming up from the bridge of a morning when the White Mail had gone by.

Everyone was kind to the boys and gave them encouragement.

Conductor Wise, who went up on the Midnight Express and came down on the White Mail, sent a dog to be company for the young watchman. Charley Cope, who fired the Highland Accommodation, gave little Jack a long whip, and the foreman of the bridge gang built a platform so that he could stand, or sit in the centre of the “horse power” like the driver of a threshing machine.

[Pg 9]

But with all this kindness, the greatest measure of help and comfort, encouragement and amusement, came from little Tommy McGuire. Round-faced, freckled, happy, careless, “onry,” the neighbors called him. He found some paint one day that the painters had left when they painted the section house, painted the white calf red and striped the goat like the zebra, whose life-sized likeness adorned the blacksmith shop.

The agent, who was something of a philosopher, always argued that Tommy McGuire was not as bad as he was painted. He was not wicked, but curious, Heidelberg said. When he put precisely the same sized can to Jimmie Connor’s dog that he put to his own dog, it was not to punish the brutes, but merely to see which would get home first, and settle a dispute of long standing.

When he took his red spaniel under his naked arm and dived from the top of the bridge when the river was running bank full, it was merely to see which could stay under water longest, himself or the dog. And so, behind all of his mischief, the agent was able to see a [Pg 10]motive. It was the boy’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge that made him want to explore everything, from the cave in the bluff to the crow’s nest in the top of the tallest sycamore.

It may be that the Connor boys were no better because of his visits, but they were happier; he was company for them and made them forget. He awed them with his wonderful feats of climbing, diving, swimming, and jumping. When Jimmie, the watchman, would shrink back and hold his cap as the cars roared past, Tommy McGuire would stand close to the rail and laugh in the face of the screaming steed. Once, just to see how it would feel, he hung from the bridge by his legs while the Midnight Express went by.

One morning Mrs. Connor saw Jimmie swinging down from the cab of a freight engine. His feet slipped from the iron step, he fell, and his mother put her hands over her eyes and screamed. In a moment he was on his feet again, waving his cap encouragingly to his mother and signalling to the engine crew to go ahead. But he was not unhurt. When they removed his trousers they found that the flange [Pg 11]of a tank wheel had sliced the whole calf off one of his legs right down to the bone.

While the rest were busy with the wounded boy, Tommy McGuire went down to the tank to break the news to little Jack. “Don’t you be afraid,” said he to the pale boy who was two years his senior, “if anything happens to Jimmie I’ll take care uv you. Dad says I’m no good, mother says I’m sassy, Mis’ Dutton says I’m ‘onry’ and the priest says I’m ‘incourageable,’ and I guess they’re all about right, but you know me, Jack, eh? old man! an’ you know I’ll do what I say.”

There were tears in the eyes of the pump boy when Tommy took his two hands, gave him a jerk forward, let him go and hit him a hard jab in the ribs, and then, as he turned, gave him a kick that looked worse than it was.

“An’ I’ve got a frien’ Jack me boy, ’at can git us anythin’ from a push car to a private train—that’s Mr. Heidelberg—he’s me frien’.”

Ten days from the day the accident occurred, they cut Jimmie’s leg off, but it was too late. He never revived, and before the bewildered children and the grief-sick mother could realize [Pg 12]what had happened, they had crossed his helpless hands over his youthful breast and lighted the candles.

That night McGuire and his men came and “waked” Jimmie, as they had waked his father only a few short months before.

U. P. Burns came with his black pipe and his black bottle and smoked and drank and sang “come-all-ye” songs.

[Pg 13]

CHAPTER III

SLEEPING OUT

The world looked dark to the widow Connor when her husband and her eldest son were sleeping among the crosses in the little Catholic graveyard.

Mrs. McGuire sent Denis to see Heidelberg, and when the roadmaster came up from East St. Louis these three officials held an important and animated meeting.

This conference was interrupted by Tommy McGuire, who burst in upon them like a sunrise in the desert.

“I got a scheme,” said he to the agent, who, having grown up under a cloud similar to that which hung over the freckled youth in front of him, beamed upon the boy encouragingly and bade him reveal his plans. “Yo’ see,” said Tommy, ignoring the roadmaster (he never noticed his father, probably because his father never noticed him), “Jack can’t keep th’ pump, ’cause he can’t harness d’ mule, an’ he can’t [Pg 14]mind d’ bridge ’cause it’s too lonesome. Now I aint got nofin t’ do, an’ I can run d’ pump in daytime, an’ Jack can sleep n ’en I can sleep in d’ shanty nights, an’ Jack can wake me when d’ Midnight Express goes by, n ’ne I can go t’ sleep agin.”

Tommy had talked very rapidly, and now as he paused for breath he glanced at the roadmaster.

“And who’s goin’ t’ ’arness th’ mule fur ye, me lad?” asked the gruff official.

Tommy gave him a dark look and turned to the agent, as much as to say, “This is our end of the road.”

“I seen Mr. Collins,” he said to the station-master, “an’ he’s goin’ t’ build me a platform long side d’ stall so I can harness d’ mule and jump on his back an’ go to me work ’thout asken any odds uv U. P. er anybody, an’ till he gets d’ platform done d’ mule can sleep in his harness a few nights—taint no worse fur ’im than fur me t’ sleep in me clothes, an’ that’s what I’m goin’ to do.”

“Very well, Tommy,” said the agent, “you wait outside and we will see what can be done.”

[Pg 15]

“Well,” began the roadmaster, when the august body had reconvened, “if ye’s fellies wants to open a kindergarden, ye kin do it, but mind, I tell ye, it’s agin me judgment t’ put a lad like little Jack Connor watchin’ a bridge o’ nights.”

“I’ll be responsible fur Jack,” said McGuire, speaking for the first time; “th’ lad have the head uv a man above his slender shoulders, an’ Pat Connor’s boy can be trusted, do ye mind that?”

“And I’ll be responsible for Tommy McGuire,” said the agent, looking at the father of the freckled youth.

“He’s a tough kid that,” said the roadmaster, “wud all jew respect to his mother.”

“Leave him to me,” said the station-master, “he’s no whit tougher than I was at his age.”

When Tincher, the agent’s under-study, went out to look for Tommy, to apprise him of what he had overheard, the boy was not to be seen. Of course he could not be expected to sit quietly in the sun for nearly an hour, and he had not. He had climbed to the top of the grain elevator, he had mixed salt with U. P. Burns’s [Pg 16]tobacco, and pinned a “lost” notice to his father’s coat that hung on the handle-bar of the hand car. Then he had scattered shelled corn for the miller’s pigs. He had discovered the agent’s marking pot, and was now lying flat on his stomach, reaching over the edge of the platform, making zebras of all the white pigs in the drove.

The widow laughed and cried when Tommy told her how it had all been arranged, and Tommy’s mother, to his surprise, actually kissed him. Even Denis McGuire was able to feel a pardonable pride in the boy. Mrs. Dutton said she was glad to “see th’ brat thryen to make suthen uv hissilf.” The priest promised to pray for him. “I’ll stand good for him here, father,” the agent had said to the priest, “if you’ll stand good hereafter,” and the priest had promised.

The first day was all too short for Tommy, though sad enough for Jack. By three o’clock in the afternoon the tank was full and the mule turned out to graze.

Mr. Collins, the foreman of the bridge carpenters,[Pg 17] had built a bunk in the little shanty, and Mrs. McGuire and the widow had come down to fix the bed for Tommy. The enthusiastic boy gave Jack little time to hug his grief, but kept talking of the future, of their importance to the company and to Jack’s family. His plans were not quite perfect in his own mind, but he felt that in some way he must contribute to the support of the widow’s family. He had no need of money for himself. He had never had any or cared to have, unless it would be to buy a target rifle like Anderson’s boy had, or maybe some firecrackers for the Fourth, and for Christmas. But poor little Jack would not enthuse. As often as Tommy looked up he found his companion staring at him as if half afraid.

“Whatcher skeered about, Jack Connor?” demanded Tommy, boxing the boy’s cap off.

“When ye goin’ to bed?” asked Jack, his wild eyes growing wider as he pictured to himself the loneliness of the place when Tommy should go to sleep.

“Aw, shucks,” said Tommy, “I’m not goin’ [Pg 18]t’ bed at all; come outside an’ le’s build a bonfire to keep th’ skeeters off.”

They made such a fire of dry brush and driftwood that when the Midnight Express came round the curve at Hagler’s tank the engineer thought the bridge was burning, and shut off. But a moment later little Jack was at the end of the bridge moving the white light up and down, as he had seen his father do, and the driver opened the throttle again. Despite the fact that Tommy was close behind him, the timid boy began to tremble and draw back as the headlight glared in his face. Tommy seized the signal lamp and stood smiling in the face of the driver as the great engine struck the bridge and roared past, shaking the earth for rods around. Away the wild steed went, out toward the morning. She had started fresh and clean from the Mississippi, she would slake, for a brief moment, her burning thirst at the Ambraw, and at dawn drink of the waters of the Wabash.

When the red lights on the rear of the flying train had drawn close together and finally dropped over the bridge, Tommy turned to [Pg 19]find little Jack crouching at the door of the shanty.

“’Smatter uv you, Jack Connor?” demanded the freckled boy. “Guess I better tie you under th’ bridge till yo’ git ust to the cars.”

They put the white light down on the floor, and began to practise their writing lesson; learning to write their names so they could sign the pay rolls when the car came up the road again. Tommy started to sing, “The Hat Me Father Wore,” but remembering suddenly that this was the only song Jimmie Connor had ever tried to sing, he changed off to “Jerry Ile the Kayre,”—

But try as he would Tommy could not keep the clouds away from the face of his friend. The poor lad seemed half dazed by the dreadful scenes through which he had passed. It was nearly morning. The bonfire had burned down to gray ashes, and the boys were sleepy.

Tommy took the red light, shook it, and [Pg 20]turned it up. A lost dog over by the saw-mill set up that awful unearthly howl that boys are wont to connect in some way with abandoned farms and funerals. A hoot-owl hooted on the top of the tank, and little Jack began to cry.

[Pg 21]

CHAPTER IV

THE FLOOD

“When the White Mail came out of the east, carrying signals for the sun on the following morning, the driver looked down on a pair of very dirty faces at the end of West Creek bridge. The white flag fluttered in the morning breeze, and little Jack’s arm shook like an aspen branch as the big engine struck the bridge and thundered by. Tommy, who feared nothing, day or night, stood near him, pushing him encouragingly as he shrank from the flying train. When they had walked across the bridge and back, to see that no sparks had fallen from the quivering ash-pan, they returned to the pump. The old mule had been harnessed before it was light, from the new platform that Tommy had designed and the boss carpenter had built. He had stopped short and fallen dead asleep the moment the boys left him to flag the fast mail. He was now rudely awakened by Tommy, who hit him a sharp cut with [Pg 22]the long whip, as he climbed to his place on the platform.

In a little while the sun came up over the tree-tops and touched the water tank. Little Mary Connor came down the track, bringing breakfast for the boys, and they were glad to see her. When she had fixed the plates and poured the hot, black coffee into the bright tin cups, she allowed Tommy to lift her onto the platform, where she encouraged the mule while the boys had breakfast.

“Say, Jack, old man; this is great,” said Tommy, taking a long pull at the bracing beverage. Jack gave his companion a furtive glance, but deigned no reply—not even a smile. “Jimminy-crismus, why don’ yo’ eat?” shouted Tommy. Jack was staring at his sister, who looked so weird and ghost-like in her black frock, with eyes that seemed too large for her, and her white face hiding in a heap of hair.