Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 11, 1925 — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

THE CALL OF SHINING STEEL. 301 proud of his record for he has never had a delay, he has made the mid-division stop on time, never a minute late, never a minute early, save one time. Zeb still vividly remembers that nerve- racking ride when Jim and himself broke the running schedule for the Mail. As the Mail pulls into Junction City, Zeb looks across to where two figures stand be- fore the door of the old fashioned farm- house, the only one left inside the cor- porate limits of Junction City. There is a grin on his face as he sees the tiny lan- tern his son holds, raise up, swing in a little arc. He blows his whistle, toot toot! Those two are not the only ones who al- ways give Zeb a salute. - Bill White never misses the Eastern Mail. That wave from his son’s gloved hand, followed by the good natured: ‘“ Howdy, pap,” as the engine slows down, is like wine to his soul. “Yep,” he says grandly at every oppor- tunity to a waiting passenger, “ Yep, I ought to know him. That’s my son, Zebbe. I brung that air boy up right, brung him up to work and he shore larned his lesson. He’s jest done had me and maw a new house put up, a stone one.” And to the rejoiner, “‘ Treats you well?” Bill White replies, ‘‘ Wal I reckon as how he orter, seeing as I allus did my best fer him.” Zeb has an amused tolerance for his father. He can’t do much for him yet he does what he can. For as time goes on, the impulsiveness of youth that fired Zeb has changed into a more complacent tolerance. Men are what conditions make them. His thoughts run back to Jim. - Yes, conditions make men, the element of chance plays its-part, too. He looks back over the long string of chances that made him, put him where he is and marvels a little. Men have come and gone on the railroad, victims of chance, helpless pawns in the game. _ Just a short time ago, he met Petey Dink, who by all rights should have been on the engine of the Eastern Mail. To Zeb’s question, “‘ How’s farming?” he answered: “ Zeb, I’ve quit farming. I’m THE no farmer. I just saw the colonel and he says I might get back again,” a ring of hope in his voice. | ‘““ What’s the matter with farming?” was Zeb’s rather surprised question. ‘“ I thought you were doing fine.” “Fine! Hell, man! The hail beat down my wheat just as I was fixing to reap it, the chickens got the pip and all died in a week, and the blooming mule, the son of a gun, choked to death trying to swallow a frozen turnip. Farming’s no good. Zeb, I’m a railroader. I’d quit in the middle of a fur- row to listen to an engine blow and I spent most of my time hanging around the sta- tion. It gets you and once it gets you, you needn’t try to do anything else.” His words recalled to Zeb another’s simi- lar phrase. Sidewheeler, in the almost for- gotten past, had said that very thing. His own desires for a farm, for more time at home, were becoming feebler each year. He envied the men whose time was their own, whose jobs were their own. Yet, to drive a crack train was Zeb’s ambition and it had been fulfilled. Life ought to mean more, still he thought philosophically, it could mean a lot less. To feel the surge and lift of that hundred ton of codrdinated mechanism below him, to jerk her throttle open and get the instant response like a spirited horse at the touch of a spur, to look back on a curve and see a string of coaches following, to know that there were half a thousand lives, a million dollars worth of property hanging on his nerve and judgment—there was a sense of command, a feeling of power in driving an engine that made Zeb feel a little superior to every one who never had experienced that thrill. Yes, Sidewheeler was right. ’em all.” The Mail was roaring along through the night. Zeb reached up, blew a crossing blow, looked ahead-to where the rails scintil- lated and glistened. Shining steel stretching out, out into the dim darkness ahead. It had him, too. He had heard. the call of that shining steel years ago. He heard it stronger than ever to-night. He would hear it always. END “It gets = comichboo S-€C tO" OY Ee a, Be ay ee hb MEA ET REO ee So