Page:The Country Boy.djvu/126

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118
THE COUNTRY BOY

cars at forty miles an hour and nerer broke a draw head, though he did break a few links. There was nothing for the other four engines to do, so they laid them off and the news went all over the country. The officials of the road came and saw from the high bluffs the work of this phenomenon below. The yard master complained and the officials said he hadn’t hurt anything. “Keep out of the way and let him run. He is doing the work of four engines and crews.” It was true he used up a car load of sand each day on the track as he approached cars, but cars were never kicked as he was kicking them. Combination-fly switches had never been invented in other yards that he was using. The oldest and toughest freight brakeman jumped out of his cab every day though he never cracked a bumper. In fact, children could have coupled them for him. He made combination switches that curled some people’s hair, but his stayed straight. Papers wrote editorials about him and cheap actors made puns on him at the vaudeville shows. When Mr. Palmer heard of Jap’s popularity he said, “Just wait and give him time.” When my vacation came I