Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- 636 When the hoop went back out of the cab window that day at K Tower the note was attached. : The following day, underneath the reduce speed orders handed up the Widow Hart, was penciled: Your spellin’ is awful. Educate your chil- dren. Sincerely, Mamie Hart. An empty hoop went back out of the cab for the next two days. Then there was a council in the engineers’ locker room at Matt’s terminal. With the assistance of a couple of spare young engineers—Mike Knea, the engine house despatcher, and Tony Largello, the traveling fireman—a sure enough, handsomely worded note for the Widow Hart was ultimately penned. It ran: Love_y Lapy: Excuse the very negligent haste of my first communication, but the onerous duties of en- gineering this company’s Western Express is my sole excuse for neglecting a so necessary art as that of spelling. Dear lady, I was once a happily married man. The demise of my wife two years back leaves me a forlorn man with five children to care for. 1 understand you are minus a husband. And may [I in- quire candidly your wishes concerning the an- nexation of another husband. Might an en- gagement to talk matters over some Saturday evening when both of us are off duty be-sug- gested? R. S. V. P. Yours truly, Matt Powers, ENGINEER. The note was thrown off, and the reply below the slow orders promptly received the following trip. Here it is: Be your natural self. You write as if you'd graduated from college overnight. I have a date every Saturday night. It is to wash all my kids. Yours, Mamie Hart. Silence from the cab of the Limited for two days, then, on the returned hoop: Wish 1 could stop some time. Ain't you ever goin’ to marry? Ans. Matt THE ENGINEER. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, y And the prompt reply next day was: I might. But wash your overalls before you speak to me of matrimony. They’re filthy. Mamie H. The next trip the brass buttons on Matt’s new overalls fairly sparkled. The note on the hoop read: What is your ans.. now ? Marr. And the reply from the widow next trip was: What answer? You mean to my marrying you? Finish the cleaning up first. Your face is greasy. I can see it as you pass. I got four to wash Saturdays now. You don’t think I’m going to take on another, do you? M. H. Matt’s face was as clean and pink the next trip as a new-born babe’s. And the note dropped read: I had a bath, too. I just tell-that so as to save more argument. Will you give me an answer now? Matt. And the widow rephed: You look very like a gentleman now. But 1 hardly think it proper to communicate in such a fashion as this regarding matrimony. Don’t you think a personal conference is bet- ter? Maybe you swear a great deal. Do you? Matt’s note next day was laconic. It read: Will have a hot box to-mor- Matt. Never swear. row and stop. The next day some of the bored travelers on the Western Express when it suddenly halted gazed out of the window ahead at a blue-overalled fireman desultorily getting on and off an engine at a signal station with a big “ K” on its side. If the pas- sengers paid particular notice they might have seen the fireman throw pail after pail of water on a trailer box that seemed per- fectly cool. And if the passengers, too, had iGbooks.com COL