Jasper Ewing Brady

“ Now, if Miles Diston had been a fireman and had climbed down a ladder with a child, you would have his picture in the paper and call him a hero and all that sort of thing; but here is a man crushed, bleeding, with broken bones, and a crippled engine, who stands on one foot, lashed to his reverse lever, for eighty miles, and making the fastest time ever made over the road, because he knew that others were suffering for the relief he brought. ”

“ I don't know how it is; but, some way or other, I remember all the railroad incidents I see or hear, and get to the bottom of most of the stories of the road. I must study them over more than most men do, or else the other fellows enjoy the comedies and deplore the tragedies, and say nothing. Sometimes I am mean enough to think that the romance, the dramas, and the tragedies of the road don't impress them as being as interesting as those of the plains, the Indians, or the seas—people are so apt to see only the everyday side of life anyway, and to draw all their romance and heroics from books. ”

“ Redway was not killed, but the shock and concussion of the detonation of the dynamite made him lose his speech and he was bleeding profusely at the nose and ears. The cowcatcher, headlight and forward trucks of the engine were blown to smithereens, but fortunately the boiler did not burst and there she stood like some powerful monster wounded to the death. The mob, imagining that their fiendish work had been complete, became emboldened and rapidly gathered around the little body of bluecoats. ”

“ Religion is goodness and justice and honesty; no man needs a sky-pilot to lay a course for him, for he alone knows where the channel, and the rocks, and the bar of his own heart are—look into your hearts.'
"Captain Burrows stood with his hat in his hand, and bowed as if in prayer, and all the old tars bowed as reverently as if the most eloquent divine was exhorting an unseen power in their behalf. ”

“ The only things in sight were a water-tank, a pump-house and the telegraph office; and I wish you could have seen that office. It was simply the bed of a box-car, taken off the trucks and set down with one end towards the track. A small platform, two windows, a door, and the signal board perched high on a pole completed the outfit.
I arrived at six-thirty in the morning and there wasn't a living soul in sight. An hour later, a big broad shouldered Irishman who proved to be the pumper, came ambling along on a railroad velocipede. ”

“ You ought to seen 'em start out, nary a slip, cutting off square as a die, small one ahead speaking her little piece chipper and fast on account of her smaller wheels, and the ten-wheeler barking bass, steady as a clock, with a hundred-and-enough on the gauge, a full throttle, and half a pipe of sand. You couldn't tell to save you whether the little one was pulling the big one or the big one shoving the little—never saw a relief train start out in such shape in my life. ”

“ Miles Diston pulled freight on our road a few years ago. He was of medium stature, dark complexion, but no beauty. He was a manly-looking fellow, well-educated enough, sober, and a steady-going, reliable engineer; you would never pick him out for a hero. Miles was young yet—not thirty—but, somehow or other, he had escaped matrimony: I guess he had never had time. He stayed on the farm at home until he was of age, and then went firing, so that when I first knew him he had barely got to his goal—the throttle. ”

“ The railroad and commercial telegraphers are well known to the general public, because they are thrown daily in contact with them, but there is still another class in the profession, which, while not being so well known are, in their way, just as important in their acts and deeds. I refer to the military telegrapher. His work does not often carry him within the environments of civilization; his instruments are not of the beautiful Bunnell pattern, placed on polished glass partitioned tables; his task is a very hard one and yet he does it without a grumble. ”

“ Now think, when war, grim-visaged and terrible, spreads its mighty power over the earth. What is responsible for the news of victory? What brings you the list you so anxiously scan of the dead and wounded? What means are employed by the subdivisions of the army in the field to keep in constant communication, so that they may act as the integral parts of an harmonious whole? In the late Spanish-American war what first brought news, authentic in character, to the Navy Department that Cervera with his doomed fleet was in Santiago harbor? ”

“ The operator's responsibility is limited to the correct reception, transmission, delivery and repetition of his orders and messages; the despatcher's to the correct conception of the orders and their transmission at the proper time to the right train; but the chief despatcher's responsibilities combine not only these but many more. A despatcher's work is cut out for him, just as the tailor would cut his cloth for a journeyman workman, and when his eight hour trick is done, his work for the day is finished and his time is his own. ”

“ I was enough of a newspaper man to fully appreciate their position, and more than one message went from me to General Greely asking if Washington could not be censored as well as Tampa. No! Army officers had no power to stop the mouths of the high civil officials of the government, and so the dance went on.
And the managing editors would flood their correspondents with telegrams of inquiry as to why they did not send the news that daily came from Washington as having originated in Tampa; and the correspondents would come to me and I would endeavor to calm them down as best I could. ”

“ As the flyer did not stop at Dunraven, the baggageman and helper went home at six o'clock and she was absolutely alone save for this half witted boy. The section house was a mile and a half away to the east. A mile away, to the south were the twinkling lights of the village, while but one short mile to the west was Peach Creek, with the bridge gone out, and the flyer thundering along towards it with its precious load of human freight. How could it be warned. The boy hadn't sense enough to pound sand. She must do it. ”

“ A man that don't respect his mother is lost to all decency; a man who will hear her name belittled is a Judas, and a man who will call his mother 'old woman' is a no-good, low-down, misbehaven whelp. Why, damn it, I'd fight a buzz-saw, if it called my mother 'old woman'—and she's been dead a long time; gone to that special, exalted, gilt-edged and glorious heaven for mothers. No one but mothers have a right to expect to go to a heaven, and the only question that'll be asked is, 'Have you been a mother?' ”

“ On the flat, hard-baked plains, the water makes no impression, but on a railroad grade, be it ever so slight, the tendency is to dig pitfalls. I have seen a little stream of water, just enough to fill the ditches on each side of the track, take out all the dirt, and keep the ties and track afloat until the water was gone, then drop them into a hole eight or ten feet deep, or if the washout was short, leave them suspended, looking safe and sound, to lure some poor engineer and his mate to death. ”

“ Telegraphers are, as a rule, a very nomadic class, wandering hither and thither like a chip buffeted about on the ocean. Their pathway is not always one of roses, and many times their feet are torn by the jagged rocks of adversity. I was no different from any of the rest, neither better nor worse, and many a night I have slept with only the deep blue sky for a covering, and it may be added—sotto voce—it is not a very warm blanket on a cold night. 'Tis said, an operator of the first class can always procure work, but there are times when even the best of them are on their uppers. ”

“ In the summer, fall, and early winter of 1863, I was tossing chips into an old Hinkley insider up in New England, for an engineer by the name of James Dillon. Dillon was considered as good a man as there was on the road: careful, yet fearless, kindhearted, yet impulsive, a man whose friends would fight for him and whose enemies hated him right royally. ”

“ It might be supposed that as soon as the army had sailed and the correspondents had gone, that the censorship duties would be lighter. They were, officially, but otherwise they became harder than ever. The army had gone, but the women had been left behind. The husbands were away—fighting—dying—while the wives were waiting with dry eyes and aching hearts for the news that would mean life or death to them. There were some forty wives, daughters, and sweethearts remaining in the Tampa Bay hotel, and to them the censor became a most interesting party. ”

“ Two minutes after the freight had left Monte Carlo, poor Pat realized he had at last131 made his mistake. He said not a word to any person, but quietly ordered out the wrecking outfit, and then reaching in the drawer he took out a revolver and—snuffed out his candle. He fell forward on the train sheet, as if to cover up with his lifeless body, the terrible blunder he had just made. Many other despatchers had made serious errors, and in a measure outlived them; but here was a man who had grown gray in the service of railroads, with never a bad mark against him. ”

“ I took Clarke's advice and went back to work on a narrow-gauge road running northwards out of Houston, through the most God-forsaken country on the footstool. Sluggish bayous, foul rank growth of vegetation, alligators as long as a rail, that would come out and stop trains by being on the track, and air so malarious in quality that it was only a question of time until one had the fever. ”

“ It is a most interesting sight, to the uninitiated, to go into the operating room of a big commercial office and see the swarms of men and women bending over glass partitioned tables; nimble footed check boys running hither and thither like so many flies, carrying to each wire the proper messages, while the volume of sound that greets your ears is positively deafening. Every once in a while some operator will raise his head and yell "Pink," "C. N. D." or "Wire." "Pink" means a message that is to be rushed ”

“ Since that time great improvements have been made until now it is difficult to recognize in the delicate mechanisms of the relay, key, sounder, duplex, quad, and multiplex, the principle first promulgated in the old Morse register. Its influence was at once felt in all walks of life; it was an art to be an expert telegrapher. Keeping pace with the strides of advancing civilization, the telegraph has spread its slender wires, until now almost the entire world is connected by its magnetism. ”

“ Like competent train despatchers, men able to be first-class chief operators are few and far between. Not only must he be an expert telegrapher, but he must thoroughly understand line, battery and switch board work, and his executive ability must be of the highest order.
I had always supposed if a man were a first-class railroad operator he could do equally54 good work on a commercial wire; in fact the operator in a small town is always employed by the railroad company and does the little amount of commercial work in addition to his other duties. ”

“ Why, Kid, you're crazy!'
"'No, I'm not. Listen, Jim, and I will explain.'
"'My father was always sorry I was not a boy. Taught me boyish tricks, and made me learn drawing. I longed for the life on a locomotive—I loved it, read about it, thought of it, and prayed to be transformed into something that could go out on the road.29 My heart went out to you early in our acquaintance, and one day the thought to get started as a fireman with you shot into my brain and was acted upon at once. After the first move there was no going back, and I have acted my part well; I have even been a good fireman. ”