by T. T. Flynn
"My time?" he echoed.
"Your time?" confirmed Spreckles.
"Wh-why," stammered Shadow, "what are you giving me my time for?"
"It's the custom," said Spreckles sarcastically. "When a man is fired, he gets his time."
"Fired?"
"Damn it, yes! Fired! Can't you understand plain English?"
"But," said Shadow painfully, "what are you firing me for? What have I done?"
"What have you done? Arggggh! What haven't you done?" Spreckles growled. "That's easier to answer."
Tiny beads of sweat came out on Shadow's forehead.
"What is it?" he begged. "Tell me."
Spreckles looked at him sharply and asked: "You don't know?"
"Not a thing?"
"Well," said Shadow painfully, "I got lit up a little yesterday. The missus had triplets, you know, an' I sort've had to blow off a little steam But I got time off, and I wasn't drunk on duty. I have done it every year since I have been working on the D and R and no one has said there was any harm in it."
Spreckles leaned back in his chair and looked at Shadow. "You didn't remember a thing when you sobered up?"
"No," said Shadow, "not a thing "
"Well," said Spreckles, and he shook his head feelingly, "you sure played yesterday." He lit a cigar and proceeded to acquaint Shadow with every detail of the day before. "And," he finished, "you're fired as high as the Eiffel Tower, and that's all there is to it."
Shadow took it quietly, but his faded blue eyes darkened with the dread of the days that lay ahead-jobless days, moneyless days, hungry days for him and for his family. He touched his lips with the end of his tongue, swallowed once or twice, and then spoke a trifle huskily. "An' then I'm really fired, Mister Spreckles?"
"You are," said Spreckles positively. "And be thankful that you have your life. There was near murder done yesterday. You have given the whole Mountain Division a black eye."
Shadow stooped, picked up his hat, and turned the faded brim nervously in his fingers. He started to speak, and then said nothing.
Spreckles, who was a kindly man at heart, spoke further. "You are through on the D and R, Macgillicuddy. It would be worth my job, if Ryan ever saw your name on the payroll again. You had best pack up and move somewhere else. I know it's hard, a man with a big family and all. But you put your foot in too deep this time."
Shadow swallowed and nodded. "All right," he said, and his voice came huskily, as if his throat was swelled almost shut. "All right, I'll try to make out somehow."
He clapped his old hat on his head, took the discharge slip, and made for the door, and such was the blow he had been dealt that he collided with the side of the door, unseeingly, as if he was still half drunk.
In the days that followed Shadow tried to make out somehow. He remained in Rawlings, partly because he had no money to move away, partly because it was home. In Rawlings his roots were buried deeply in the soil of familiarity. There, also, was his railroad, for the D&R was still his road. The fire of loyalty that had blazed with increasing intensity in Shadow's flattened chest still burned highly. He was divorced from the company rolls, but his spiritual contact was not broken. To him the D&R was still the finest stretch of steel in the country, and he was a part of it. He felt no animosity toward Ryan, Blanton, or Spreckles. He realized that he had acted in a manner ill befitting one who belonged on the D&R and felt the disgrace he had brought on the Mountain Division almost as fully as did those who had discharged him. Feeling as he did, he remained close by that which had cast him off, obtaining in his groping way a measure of comfort from proximity to that which might have been.
His way was hard. There were no factories in Rawlings. Nothing but the railroad and such businesses as catered to the railroad men and the farmer folk in the country roundabout. Shadow sought work futilely and with increasing despair. When it seemed as if every possibility had been exhausted, he shambled into the grocery store of Abe Gatz and was hired to deliver groceries. The salary was small, for Abe Gatz was not the man to pay much money for anything and certainly not for something that most boys could do. Still, it was work, and Shadow clutched at it with the desperation of the jobless. It was something with which to battle the specter of want that had suddenly reared up into his life.
Every morning at six Shadow reported for work. All day he sat on Gatz's rickety wagon, clucked to the bony old horse, and carried boxes of groceries into back doors. In addition he kept the store windows clean, swept out the store, put up orders, carted freight from the station, and kept the horse and stable clean. But, although Shadow had a job, he also had fourteen mouths to feed on less than half what he had earned on the railroad. He began to wear a haggard look. After Gatz closed the store at six in the evening and Shadow was free, he often did odd jobs, such as cutting lawns, burying trash, and sawing wood against the winter months to come.
The Macgillicuddy children grew scrawny and ragged. John, the oldest, worked for Gatz every Saturday. His brother, a year younger, obtained the Rawlings agency for several magazines. Their income must still have been deficient, for one day one of the children was seen hauling wash home on the little wagon that Shadow had bought him in their more prosperous days. Game, plucky little Mrs. Macgillicuddy was much smaller than Shadow, with the burden of twelve children on her shoulders, many of them infants. Yet such was their need that she had to take in washing to keep bread in their mouths and milk in their bottles.
That washing must have been cruel for Shadow. He loved his wife with all his simple heart, and the thought of her adding washing to the rest of her cares bore down upon him heavily. His face showed it. It grew wan and pinched and deep lines became etched where once had been wrinkles of laughter. He tried desperately for other work that would pay more, but it simply was not to be had for love or money.
His plight was not unknown to Blanton and Spreckles. No man's state can long be hidden in a community the size of Rawlings. Shadow delivered groceries to Blanton's back door, and occasionally Blanton saw him and noted the ravages of circumstances on his pinched face.
One day Blanton and Spreckles were walking home together when they passed one of the Macgillicuddy children struggling with a load of wash. The little wagon was wedged in a rut, and the frail strength of the youngster was inadequate to free it.
Blanton stopped, lifted up the wagon, and set it on smooth going once more. After the youngster had thanked him gratefully and trundled off with his burden, Blanton stood in his tracks and looked after him with a frown.
"That family is having the very devil of a time to make ends meet, Spreckles," he said. "Did you notice the shoes that kid has on? I saw his father the other day, and his own feet were shod no better?"
"It's hard," agreed Spreckles, and he added: "Were it up to me, I would give the man back his place. What is done, is done. He's had his lesson, and he always was a good steady worker."
"Yes," said Blanton, falling into step beside Spreckles once more. "If it was up to us, it would be all right. But it's not. Ryan sat in on this deal. If Macgillicuddy went back on the payroll and Ryan found it out, good night. You know Ryan."
Spreckles nodded. He did know Ryan. Every man on the division knew Ryan. If a man did his part beyond censure, Ryan was all right, a fair and just man in the main. But let a man once fall, succumb to carelessness, neglect, let him do something out of the line of duty, and Ryan became stern and implacable. He had no use for the man who was not a smooth, efficient cog in the scheme of things. No. As far as Ryan was concerned, the thing was over for all time, and to seek to reopen it would be an extremely foolhardy act. Blanton and Spreckles let the subject drop.
Autumn dragged to a bleak end. The green leaves of summer gave way to flaming colors and, in turn, withered and fluttered to the ground. The days became crisp and the nights cool. And with the demand for winter clothes, for coal and the increasing appetites of the growing children, the Macgillicuddys were forced to retrench further. The rent was the only pla
ce where the pruning knife could be applied. So they moved from the comfortable house they had occupied since they first came to Rawlings, moved to a veritable shack down near the roundhouse, where the rent was negligible.
The sacrifice had some compensations for Shadow. They were near the railroad. Of an evening when he had no work to do, he would sit on the front porch and listen to the activities of the shops. To his ears came the roar of the blowers, the crash of iron mauls against the side of coal tipple cars, the rat-a-tat of boilermakers' air chisels, the whistles and bells of arriving and departing engines, and the pop and rush of escaping steam from locomotive safety valves. It all blended into a soothing cadence that was the sweetest of music to Shadow Macgillicuddy.
If he cared to do so, and he often did, he could walk a half a block and come out beside the main line tracks. There on a bank he would sit and smoke his stubby black pipe and watch the long freights rumble past, and the passenger trains as they came out of Rawlings and picked up speed for the run to Dickson at the foot of Twenty Mile Grade. On the engines were men he knew, and often they waved at him. He waved back and watched them thunder off into the distance with a wistful look in his faded blue eyes. After such an incident Shadow would sigh heavily and sometimes dream for a few minutes and sometimes uncoil his long, lanky form and shamble home to his brood and some task that remained to be finished.
December came, and with it the first snow and cold of the winter. Shadow still delivered groceries for Abe Gatz. It was cold work. Even with the retrenchment there was little money for clothes in the Macgillicuddy exchequer, and Shadow was thinly clad against the chill blasts. But he perched on the rickety wagon bravely and continued to make his smiling rounds despite wet, half-frozen feet and chill flesh. Sometimes, although the bank alongside the railroad track was covered with snow, he found time to slip away in the early darkness and watch the trains pass for a short time.
In the middle of December the first heavy gale of winter arrived. It swept down out of the northwest, howling, shrieking, driving half snow, half sleet in cutting sheets across the landscape. Fortunately it did not arrive until late afternoon when Shadow was almost through with his deliveries. But at that he was blue with the cold when he returned to the store. He drove the horse into the barn without stopping to unload the empty delivery boxes. His teeth chattered and chills raced through his body. He could think of nothing save the warm stove in the store.
His fingers were so stiff with the cold that he could hardly unbuckle the harness straps. But finally he stripped the harness off and flung it over the harness rack. Before he went into the store, he threw fresh straw under the horse, carried water for him to drink, and filled his feed box. Not until he was sure that the dumb beast was comfortable did he leave the barn.
The red-hot stove in the store was a thing of joy. Shadow stood by it, soaking up the heat until his worn clothes smoked and became painfully hot. It seemed as if he would never get warm enough. Finally Abe Gatz spoke sharply from behind the counter.
"The floor iss very dirty, yess?"
Shadow nodded wearily and went for the broom. Gatz kept him busy until six o'clock. Shadow was almost grateful. He dreaded the thought of the walk home through the storm. But at last Gatz unwound the strings of his soiled apron from about his fat middle and emptied the contents of the cash drawer into a dirty salt sack. Another day was over and Shadow, hugging the stove until the last minute, finally found himself on his way home.
Darkness had fallen, and he stumbled and slipped in the mounting drifts. It was cold, bitterly so. He shivered and hugged his arms tightly against his thin body in a futile effort to keep out the wind and hold in some of the body heat. He passed the comfortable house that they had been forced to vacate and plunged on toward the little place where they were living. At least it would be warm. They were close to the railroad and the children had picked up much coal from along the tracks.
The houses thinned out, and presently Shadow was wading knee deep in unbroken drifts. At last he saw through the darkness the lights of his little place. Back of it, shining dimly through the darkness and the falling snow, were some of the roundhouse lights. Shadow looked at them as he plodded forward. They were symbols of a safe haven. Beneath them was steady work, good wages, a carefree life, and agreeable companions. Regret that he was barred from them, a wave of homesickness for a warm cab, the smell of coal-gas smoke, of hot oil and steam swept him.
Just before he reached the front gate, he heard above the howling wind the crashing exhaust of a great freight engine laboring along the main line. It called to him in a language that he knew and understood. He shivered in the icy blast and thought of the cab of the engine. The storm curtains were down, he knew, and the cab windows closed. It was warm and cozy inside and the fireman was sitting back at his ease, for the freight engines of the D&R had automatic stokers on them that fed coal on the fire with no effort on the part of the fireman.
Shadow stumped up his front walk to the porch and tramped the snow from his feet. In spite of the cold and the lure of the warmth on the other side of the door, he stopped for a brief instant to listen again to the measured beat of the freight train's progress. He heard this, and something else, as he stood with his senses sharpened and listening. Through the storm, over the noise of the passing train, he heard the whistle of the shops rise in a long, wailing blast.
Shadow stiffened and listened intently.
The door beside him opened and Mrs. Macgillicuddy peered out. She had heard Shadow's footsteps and wondered at his delay in entering. When she saw him standing there, peering off into the storm, she spoke sharply: "George! What's the matter with you? Come in here out of the storm!"
Shadow shook his head and motioned for her to be quiet. The next instant the whistle came again and again. Smothered by the storm, overwhelmed by the noise of the passing freight, nevertheless it came clearly to his straining ears. It was the fire signal at the shops. Fire, and a gale blowing. It could easily be a terrible thing.
Shadow turned. "Fire!" he exclaimed excitedly. "There's a fire at the roundhouse!"
Mrs. Macgillicuddy sniffed. She shared none of Shadow's love for the railroad If anything she felt resentment against it. Much of their straitened circumstances she laid at the door of the railroad, and any reference to it was liable to provoke a hot reply. As she saw her husband standing out in the storm, felt her house getting cold from the door she held open for him, and then heard him begin to talk about the railroad, her wrath boiled over.
"What of it?" she demanded sharply. "What's the railroad to you? Come in out of the cold. The house is getting all chilled off."
Shadow stared intently in the direction of the shops and said nothing.
"George Macgillicuddy," said his wife ominously, "you come in here!"
Shadow came unwillingly and slowly, but he came. In their house there was one ruling spirit, and it was not Shadow.
Mrs. Macgillicuddy bustled back into the kitchen, voicing her opinion of a man who would stand out in the storm mooning over a company that had fired him. Shadow paid her no heed. He prowled restlessly about the living room with his coat still on. A dozen turns he made, and then, with a guilty look at the door leading back to the kitchen, he opened the front door a trifle and applied his ear to it. The freight was dwindling away in the distance, the noise of the storm arose louder, and of the fire whistle there was no sound.
Shadow closed the door and again took up his restless pacing. There was a fire at the roundhouse, he knew. It might be small. It might be large and getting larger. In any event he felt that he must go to it. Not just because it was a fire, but because it was a fire on the railroad-his railroad. In spirit he was still a part of the D&R, and, when danger or trouble threatened, he felt it his duty to answer.
Dishes rattled in the kitchen. The children's voices rose in a hum of conversation. Presently Mrs. Macgillicuddy spoke.
"Supper is ready, George. You can wash and set down."
Shad
ow stopped his pacing and, after a moment's hesitation, started for the kitchen door. Halfway to it he stopped and, on an impulse, went to the window, pulled the curtains aside, smeared a peephole in the frosting on the glass, and peered out into the night. What he saw made him forget the supper, forget his wife, forget his weariness, his damp feet, his recent chills that had hardly left him. Through the falling flakes of snow a red glow was rising over the shops. As he stared, it in creased, and a swirl that might have been smoke and might have been snow shot up from it.
Shadow let the curtains fall back in place and stood undecided. It was a big fire. They would need every man they could get, and more. In common decency he should go. His hat lay on the chair by the front door where he had dropped it when he came in. He took a step toward it.
Mrs. Macgillicuddy called from the kitchen.
"George! Supper is on the table. The children are all seated and waiting on you. Are you ever coming?"
Shadow picked up his hat and grasped the doorknob in his hand. He took a deep breath. "Not hungry!" he called. "They's a big fire over at the shops. I'm going to run over and see if I can help any. Can't run any risks of letting it get out of control, you know. It might get over into the town."
Without waiting for her reply, he opened the door and plunged outside. Jamming his hat tightly on his head and ducking into the blast, he ran down the front walk and out the front gate. As he struggled through the drifts toward the shops, the glow grew brighter. He came to the edge of the roundhouse yards. Over the top of a line of coal cars darting flicks of flame became visible, apparently coming from the machine shop.
The line of coal cars blocked the way and Shadow was forced to climb between them or make a long detour around the end. He chose to climb. Such was his haste that he struck his knee on the coupler cut lever as he clambered through. The pain was intense, but he dropped to the ground on the other side and continued without stopping, limping as he ran. He crossed the last line of tracks, ran under the coal tipple, and burst out by the fire.
