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sewing up two bad gashes in the face of a little boy who
had been kicked by a mule. After the boy had been ban-
daged and sent away with his father, Thea helped the doc-
tor wash and put away the surgical instruments. Then
she dropped into her accustomed seat beside his desk
and began to talk about the tramp. Her eyes were hard
and green with excitement, the doctor noticed.
"It seems to me, Dr. Archie, that the whole town's to
blame. I'm to blame, myself. I know he saw me hold my
nose when he went by. Father's to blame. If he believes
the Bible, he ought to have gone to the calaboose and
cleaned that man up and taken care of him. That's what
I can't understand; do people believe the Bible, or don't
they? If the next life is all that matters, and we're put
here to get ready for it, then why do we try to make money,
or learn things, or have a good time? There's not one
person in Moonstone that really lives the way the New
Testament says. Does it matter, or don't it?"
Dr. Archie swung round in his chair and looked at her,
honestly and leniently. "Well, Thea, it seems to me like
this. Every people has had its religion. All religions are
good, and all are pretty much alike. But I don't see how we
could live up to them in the sense you mean. I've thought
about it a good deal, and I can't help feeling that while we
are in this world we have to live for the best things of this
world, and those things are material and positive. Now,
most religions are passive, and they tell us chiefly what we
should not do." The doctor moved restlessly, and his eyes
hunted for something along the opposite wall: "See here,
my girl, take out the years of early childhood and the time
we spend in sleep and dull old age, and we only have about
twenty able, waking years. That's not long enough to get
acquainted with half the fine things that have been done
in the world, much less to do anything ourselves. I think
we ought to keep the Commandments and help other
people all we can; but the main thing is to live those
twenty splendid years; to do all we can and enjoy all we
can."
Dr. Archie met his little friend's searching gaze, the look
of acute inquiry which always touched him.
"But poor fellows like that tramp--" she hesitated and
wrinkled her forehead.
The doctor leaned forward and put his hand protect-
ingly over hers, which lay clenched on the green felt desk-
top. "Ugly accidents happen, Thea; always have and
always will. But the failures are swept back into the pile
and forgotten. They don't leave any lasting scar in the
world, and they don't affect the future. The things that
last are the good things. The people who forge ahead and
do something, they really count." He saw tears on her
cheeks, and he remembered that he had never seen her cry
before, not even when she crushed her finger when she was
little. He rose and walked to the window, came back and
sat down on the edge of his chair.
"Forget the tramp, Thea. This is a great big world, and
I want you to get about and see it all. You're going to
Chicago some day, and do something with that fine voice
of yours. You're going to be a number one musician and
make us proud of you. Take Mary Anderson, now; even the
tramps are proud of her. There isn't a tramp along the `Q'
system who hasn't heard of her. We all like people who
do things, even if we only see their faces on a cigar-box lid."
They had a long talk. Thea felt that Dr. Archie had
never let himself out to her so much before. It was the
most grown-up conversation she had ever had with him.
She left his office happy, flattered and stimulated. She ran
for a long while about the white, moonlit streets, looking
up at the stars and the bluish night, at the quiet houses
sunk in black shade, the glittering sand hills. She loved
the familiar trees, and the people in those little houses, and
she loved the unknown world beyond Denver. She felt as
if she were being pulled in two, between the desire to go
away forever and the desire to stay forever. She had only
twenty years--no time to lose.
Many a night that summer she left Dr. Archie's office
with a desire to run and run about those quiet streets until
she wore out her shoes, or wore out the streets themselves;
when her chest ached and it seemed as if her heart were
spreading all over the desert. When she went home, it was
not to go to sleep. She used to drag her mattress beside
her low window and lie awake for a long while, vibrating
with excitement, as a machine vibrates from speed. Life
rushed in upon her through that window--or so it seemed.
In reality, of course, life rushes from within, not from with-
out. There is no work of art so big or so beautiful that it was
not once all contained in some youthful body, like this one
which lay on the floor in the moonlight, pulsing with ardor
and anticipation. It was on such nights that Thea Kronborg
learned the thing that old Dumas meant when he told the
Romanticists that to make a drama he needed but one
passion and four walls.
XIX
It is well for its peace of mind that the traveling public
takes railroads so much for granted. The only men who
are incurably nervous about railway travel are the railroad
operatives. A railroad man never forgets that the next run
may be his turn.
On a single-track road, like that upon which Ray Ken-
nedy worked, the freight trains make their way as best they
can between passenger trains. Even when there is such a
thing as a freight time-schedule, it is merely a form. Along
the one track dozens of fast and slow trains dash in both
directions, kept from collision only by the brains in the
dispatcher's office. If one passenger train is late, the whole
schedule must be revised in an instant; the trains following
must be warned, and those moving toward the belated train
must be assigned new meeting-places.
Between the shifts and modifications of the passenger
schedule, the freight trains play a game of their own. They
have no right to the track at any given time, but are sup-
posed to be on it when it is free, and to make the best time
they can between passenger trains. A freight train, on a
single-track road, gets anywhere at all only by stealing
bases.
Ray Kennedy had stuck to the freight service, although
he had had opportunities to go into the passenger service
at higher pay. He always regarded railroading as a tempo-
rary makeshift, until he "got into something," and he dis-
liked the passenger service. No brass buttons for him, he
said; too much like a livery. While he was railroading he
would wear a jumper, thank you!
The wreck that "caught" Ray was a very commonplace
one; nothing thrilling about it, and it got only six lines in
the Denver papers. It happened about daybreak one
morning, only thirty-two miles from home.
At four o'clock in the morning Ray's train had stopped
to take water at Saxony, having just rounded the long
curve which lies south of that station. It was Joe Giddy's
business to walk back along the curve about three hundred
yards and put out torpedoes to warn any train which might
be coming up from behind--a freight crew is not notified
of trains following, and the brakeman is supposed to protect
his train. Ray was so fussy about the punctilious observ-
ance of orders that almost any brakeman would take a
chance once in a while, from natural perversity.
When the train stopped for water that morning, Ray
was at the desk in his caboose, making out his report.
Giddy took his torpedoes, swung off the rear platform, and
glanced back at the curve. He decided that he would not
go back to flag this time. If anything was coming up be-
hind, he could hear it in plenty of time. So he ran forward
to look after a hot journal that had been bothering him.
In a general way, Giddy's reasoning was sound. If a freight
train, or even a passenger train, had been coming up behind
them, he could have heard it in time. But as it happened, a
light engine, which made no noise at all, was coming,--
ordered out to help with the freight that was piling up at
the other end of the division. This engine got no warning,
came round the curve, struck the caboose, went straight
through it, and crashed into the heavy lumber car ahead.
The Kronborgs were just sitting down to breakfast, when
the night telegraph operator dashed into the yard at a run
and hammered on the front door. Gunner answered the
knock, and the telegraph operator told him he wanted to
see his father a minute, quick. Mr. Kronborg appeared at
the door, napkin in hand. The operator was pale and
panting.
"Fourteen was wrecked down at Saxony this morning,"
he shouted, "and Kennedy's all broke up. We're sending
an engine down with the doctor, and the operator at Saxony
says Kennedy wants you to come along with us and bring
your girl." He stopped for breath.
Mr. Kronborg took off his glasses and began rubbing
them with his napkin.
"Bring--I don't understand," he muttered. "How did
this happen?"
"No time for that, sir. Getting the engine out now.
Your girl, Thea. You'll surely do that for the poor chap.
Everybody knows he thinks the world of her." Seeing that
Mr. Kronborg showed no indication of having made up his
mind, the operator turned to Gunner. "Call your sister,
kid. I'm going to ask the girl herself," he blurted out.
"Yes, yes, certainly. Daughter," Mr. Kronborg called.
He had somewhat recovered himself and reached to the
hall hatrack for his hat.
Just as Thea came out on the front porch, before the
operator had had time to explain to her, Dr. Archie's ponies
came up to the gate at a brisk trot. Archie jumped out
the moment his driver stopped the team and came up to
the bewildered girl without so much as saying good-morn-
ing to any one. He took her hand with the sympathetic,
reassuring graveness which had helped her at more than
one hard time in her life. "Get your hat, my girl. Ken-
nedy's hurt down the road, and he wants you to run down
with me. They'll have a car for us. Get into my buggy,
Mr. Kronborg. I'll drive you down, and Larry can come
for the team."
The driver jumped out of the buggy and Mr. Kronborg
and the doctor got in. Thea, still bewildered, sat on her fa-
ther's knee. Dr. Archie gave his ponies a smart cut with the
whip.
When they reached the depot, the engine, with one car
attached, was standing on the main track. The engineer
had got his steam up, and was leaning out of the cab im-
patiently. In a moment they were off. The run to Saxony
took forty minutes. Thea sat still in her seat while Dr.
Archie and her father talked about the wreck. She took
no part in the conversation and asked no questions, but
occasionally she looked at Dr. Archie with a frightened,
inquiring glance, which he answered by an encouraging
nod. Neither he nor her father said anything about how
badly Ray was hurt. When the engine stopped near Saxony,
the main track was already cleared. As they got out of the
car, Dr. Archie pointed to a pile of ties.
"Thea, you'd better sit down here and watch the wreck
crew while your father and I go up and look Kennedy over.
I'll come back for you when I get him fix...
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