Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1914 — ALMOST UNDER THE ENGINE [ARTICLE]

ALMOST UNDER THE ENGINE

Child Plucked From Fearful Peril by Trainman Who Risked His Life in the AcL Little Johnny- Roe and his sister. Slavish children, four and five years old, respectively, sat in'the middle of the railroad in front of their home near the Remington Salt works at Ithaca, building toy forts out of the chunks of slag and cinders that compose the ballast So deeply were they engrossed in the war game that they did not hear the whistle of the approaching Ludlowvllle pick-up, or If they did hear it they paid not the least bit of attention. Johnny and his sister are used to trains anyway, and the only thing they mind is the sound of their mother’s voice. Mother didn’t call, so they supposed it was all right, and. kept on strengthening their fort against the attack of the hostile French and English, unconscious of the more imminent danger. The pick-up was speeding southward toward Ithaca at a fast clip when George C. Blake, a trainman riding on the cab, saw the position of the children, seated between the rails with their backs to the engine. In a second Blake broke the air line, applying the emergency pressure to the brakes. Then he climbed out on the running board and down to the pilot of the locomotive. The little girl managed to jump aside at the last but Johnny sat there spellbound, and Blake, with one hand holdings brace on the pilot, reached forward with the other and picking the lad up almost from under the locomotive, swung him aside into the grass, out of harm’s way. The engine rolled a few feet past the spot where the children had been sitting before coming to a stop.