PAGE 5
"Run To Seed"
by
“Thank you, I–I’m ever so much obliged to you,” he sobbed.
The President rose and walked rapidly about the room.
Suddenly Jim turned and, with his arm over his eyes, held out his hand to the President.
“Good-by.” Then he went out.
There was a curious smile on the faces of the Directors as the door closed.
“Well, I never saw anything like that before,” said one of them. The President said nothing.
“Run to seed,” quoted the oldest of the Directors, “rather good expression!”
“Damned good seed, gentlemen,” said the President, a little shortly. “Duval and Upton.–That fellow’s father was in my command. Died at Gettysburg. He’d fight hell.”
Jim got a place–brakeman on a freight-train.
That night Jim wrote a letter home. You’d have thought he had been elected President.
It was a hard life: harder than most. The work was hard; the fare was hard; the life was hard. Standing on top of rattling cars as they rushed along in the night around curves, over bridges, through tunnels, with the rain and snow pelting in your face, and the tops as slippery as ice. There was excitement about it, too: a sense of risk and danger. Jim did not mind it much. He thought of his mother and Kitty.
There was a freemasonry among the men. All knew each other; hated or liked each other; nothing negative about it.
It was a bad road. Worse than the average. Twice the amount of traffic was done on the single track that should have been done. Result was men were ground up–more than on most roads. More men were killed in proportion to the number employed than were killed in service during the war. The esprit de corps was strong. Men stood by their trains and by each other. When a man left his engine in sight of trouble, the authorities might not know about it, but the men did. Unless there was cause he had to leave. Sam Wray left his engine in sight of a broken bridge after he reversed. The engine stopped on the track. The officers never knew of it; but Wray and his fireman both changed to another road. When a man even got shaky and began to run easy, the superintendent might not mind it; but the men did: he had to go. A man had to have not only courage but nerve.
Jim was not especially popular among men. He was reserved, slow, awkward. He was “pious” (that is, did not swear). He was “stuck up” (did not tell “funny things,” by which was meant vulgar stories; nor laugh at them either). And according to Dick Rail, he was “stingy as h–l.”
These things were not calculated to make him popular, and he was not. He was a sort of butt for the free and easy men who lived in their cabs and cabooses, obeyed their “orders,” and owned nothing but their overalls and their shiny Sunday clothes. He was good-tempered, though. Took all their gibes and “dev’ling” quietly, and for the most part silently. So, few actually disliked him. Dick Rail, the engineer of his crew, was one of those few. Dick “dee-spised” him. Dick was big, brawny, coarse: coarse in looks, coarse in talk, coarse every way, and when he had liquor in him he was mean. Jim “bothered” him, he said. He made Jim’s life a burden to him. He laid himself out to do it. It became his occupation. He thought about it when Jim was not present; laid plans for it. There was something about Jim that was different from most others. When Jim did not laugh at a “hard story,” but just sat still, some men would stop; Dick always told another harder yet, and called attention to Jim’s looks. His stock was inexhaustible. His mind was like a spring which ran muddy water; its flow was perpetual. The men thought Jim did not mind. He lost three pounds; which for a man who was six feet (and would have been six feet two if he had been straight) and who weighed 122, was considerable.