Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 221, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1914 — A BAD BOY'S CHOICE [ARTICLE]

A BAD BOY'S CHOICE

By C. D. NOYES.

(Copyright.) Jo Flyn, alias “Snippy,” was never a good boy. We all knew that he was bad, for our parents and teachers said so, but we boys all liked him. “Snippy" could be depended upon. When he promised any one a licking he delivered the goods, or tpok one himself, which answered the same purpose. He never told on another fellow, and his lessons to good purpose, when nothing more to his liking was to be done. But his lessons never in- ' terfered with the other things. “Snippy” was undersized for his age, but a natural leader, with an irresistible bent for forbidden places and things and a remarkable independence of character. He always took the consequences of his own acts gracefully and never grumbled. We realized these and many other of his characteristics later in life. As a boy, we only knew that he was bad —but we liked him. Before any of us were more than half-grown boys, “Snippy” left school and went to work in the rolling mills. First, he was a buggy-boy—wheeling great balla of white-hot iron from the furnaces to the giant trip-hammer on a curious little two-wheeled, longhandled iron cart, billed a “buggy.” Then he was a fireman —stoker, the Welsh iron-workers called it. “Snippy’s” furnace was always hot, the hottest In the mill. Finally, about the time the rest of us left grammar school he was advanced to a furnace boss, or puddler. We used often to see him stripped to the waist, the' great muscles showing on his back and shoulders, working before the open mouth of a glowing furnace, with a long bar forming the half-molten Iron into the great ball which we had so often seen beaten into ingots by the trip-hammer. It almost seemed the realization of many familiar warnings to see the bad boy writhing and sweating amid the sulphurous gases, prodding the glowing fire with a huge, long-handled pitchfork. Soon after this “Snippy” went out West to a newly opened steel mill, and we-heard nothing of him for several years. Then rumor came to town that he had been seen wearing a striped suit in a western prison. Rumors were followed by facts. “Snippy" was a convict. Many wise heads wagged, and the wiseacres re-i called that they had foretold the end of the bad boy long ago. » Unexpectedly, one day “Snippy” reappeared among us. He had never been handsome, or even passable in appearance, and age had not improved him. He was still undersized, except as to his arms, which were much too long. His chest and shoulders were proportionate to his arms, and much too large for his head. His hair was brickred and his freckles overlapped each other. Both toes turned in and one eye turned out. They were the same peculiarities we had known in boyhood, all accentuated by age. He had, in a large scar extending from the right ear under the chin to the middle of the left cheek. Some well-intentioned, but badly informed, person had thought to Improve "the world by putting "Snippy” out of it, and had left the job unfinished. He was a bad man to look at and worse to handle. “Snippy” was reticent. He gave no account of himself or of what he had been doing during his years of absence, and his reticence was catching. No one asked him. It was natural to associate the scar with the prison uniform. Somehow, we felt that the other ieltow had more need of sympathy than “Snippy” had. ’ He wanted a job. Steel-making had changed while he wore the striped suit; new-tools and new methods had come into use. “Snippy” did not want to learn his trade over again, so he went to railroading. There was activity, danger, and hardship enough in a brakeman’s life to tempt him. Then the mutual dependence and reliance of trainmen on '' each other appealed to him. His rugged qualities of self-reliance and leadership demanded action and expression, and found both in the strenuous life of the freight brakeman. „Jhe mysterious feeling of fellowship that binds together all men engaged in a dangerous occupation—when the care or neglect of one may save or lose the lives of many—instantly recognized that “Snippy" could be depended upon. One . knew instinctively that he would never be found wanting when the test came. He was employed on one of the trunk lines, running east and west on a division of 140 miles of double track, with light grades and easy curves. Trains of 45 or 50 freight cars were not uncommon, even in his time. The train was handled by a crew of six men —the engineer and fireman on the engine, conductor, flagman, and two brakemen, one of whom should always be on or near the engine, and one near the caboose, in which the others might ride. “Snippy’s” usual post was in front. ’' One rainy night in early spring *Bnlppy’s" crew was ordered out for the 140-mlle run westward. He had no’ faith in omens or premonitions, so rwhen he noticed that It was March 18, sand that there were thirteen names •n the “board," he only thought that

traffic was heavy and that Babcock, the engineer, had all the cars he could handle on the slippery rails. But he rode well forward that night, knowing that the frozen ground, thawing in the rain, made the road-bed soft, and that If It were possible for a land slip to occur the conditions were just right for It. Something did happen. It was just as the train wal starting, after having stopped for water at a tank 30 miles from their starting point. “Snippy" stood on the third car back of the engine. A sudden jolt and lurch threw him to Hie ground between the tracks. He knew that something was wrong as he fell, and he heard the cutting hiss of escaping steam. Babcock was too careful a man to stop his train so, without first giving warning with his whigtle. “Snippy” was dazed and half stunned by his fall, but he jumped to his feet instantly. His first impulse was to find the cause of the trouble. The coupling ahead of the car on which he stood was broken, and the two cars between it and the engine were off the track. The engine moved forward slowly, dragging the two cars over the ties. He knew now that a rock had fallen in the cut as the engine passed. Babcock and his fireman were evidently injured, or the engine would have stopped. Fifty yards ahead was a bridge—an old fashioned wooden affair, over a small stream. The eastbound express was due on the other track. "Snippy” knew all of this and more. The same knowledge or intuition that had told him what had happened told him also what would happen should the engine pulling the derailed cars reach the bridge. The car bodies, being so far from the center line of the track, would strike the upper works of the bridge and perhaps cause the collapse of the whole structure. At any rate, it would block both tracks. And the east-bound express? No, “Snippy” had not forgotten that, either. He caught the glint of her headlight rounding the curve at Hickory Grove, only two miles away. Railroad men think quickly in an emergency. "Snippy” did. He knew that the others were coming up from the caboose, 1,500 feet away, as fast as they could. The express would reach the bridge in half the time it would take them to reach him. The derailed cars would reach it before any of them, unless the engine was stopped. , “Snippy” paused to consider and weigh these things a long time under the circumstances, possibly a fraction over two seconds —long enough for the express to travel 200 feet nearer to the bridge. It may- have taken “Snippy” half a minute to reach the engine, while the express covered half a mile. He knew the state of things tn the cab of the engine without stopping to investigate. Babcock and his fireman were helpless on the floor—injured, but not fatally. The cab was full of live steam escaping from a broken injector, not merely vapor such as comes from the spout of a boiling teakettle, but superheated steam from a boiler under pressure of 160 pounds to the square Inch. The higher the pressure the greater the heat, and this was steam that would sear the flesh like molten lead, more fatal to • breathe than direct flame. “Snippy” may not have known the theory of superheated steam or water boiling under pressure, but he did know the facts and did not hesitate. He had already calculated the chances during the two seconds that he stopped to think, pe climbed to the cab, dived into the hissing cloud, and shoved in the throttle as he sprang. The engine stopped two car lengths from the bridge. A score of seconds later the eastbound express with hundreds of passengers passed safely. When the rest of the crew came up from behind and dragged “Snippy” out of the cab he was dead. The next day, in the city, these same passengers may have seen “Snippy’s” obituary—a four-line dispatch from an unknown telegraph office stating that there had been a freight wreck, caused by loose stones falling on the track, in which a brakeman had been killed; the fireman seriously, and the engineer slightly injured. They may have seen the dispatch, but they certainly did not know that the brakeman had coolly, deliberately, and knowingly sacrificed his life to save theirs.