Christmas Comes to the Prairie Central
"Banker Management Had Nearly Wrecked the System;
a Blizzard Threatened to Finish the Job."
The gray bowl of the sky had shut down over the Oberlin yard. Snow fell in big flakes, sliding in quietly to make a clean carpet over rails and gaunt ties and the dark ballast between. It washed the sprawling roof of the big station, with division headquarters above stairs. It made the lines of rolling stock along the sidings look like the huge links of long white chains in the growing afternoon gloom. The night air was tight as a drum. You could feel the sullen pressure of the storm climb. The wind gathered out there somewhere under the dull arch.
Eddie Sand, slim and light-stepping, came up the station platform heading for the dispatcher's office. A boomer telegraph operator from every place but here, he'd be sure to drift on once more when his feet again became restless. Right now the swarming flakes and the crisp air trickling in about the high collar of his overcoat stirred a random element inside him. They shifted his thoughts beyond the lowering sky and the curtain of snow to far reaches of sun and desert. Eddie felt good. He was ticking like a watch. Beside him loped Hi Wheeler, fiddle-footed trainman and comrade on many unseemly pranks. Hi's sheepskin coat was belted tight about his gaunt middle. A shrewd glint of oafish eyes showed from the nest of turned-up collar and low visor of his heavy cap.
The thick shutter of snow muffled and blanketed the restless area of the fanned-out sidings. A yard goat stamped by, sluggishly dragging a string of open-top equipment. Her exhaust shook the dead air, bouncing back from the low sky.
Eddie and his friend paused before separating at the foot of the outside stairs under the shelter of the wide eaves. Hi's face cracked in an impish grin. "I'll bet you got me something nice for Christmas, Eddie," he insinuated blandly. "You wouldn't neglect an old pal."
Eddie gestured with his hands inside his overcoat pockets. Yeah, it was Christmas Eve, he admitted. So what? To a railroader it merely meant more grief handling people and packages which were on the move at holiday time. And on the Prairie Central it'd be a wearisome time, considering she was likely in the clutches of the Big Six Line which would probably kick her into the ashcan. Anyhow, railroaders didn't celebrate. They just fixed it so that everybody else could enjoy themselves. "Also," Eddie admitted, "I forgot to buy you that stick of candy I promised. I'll try to skirmish one for you in the morning."
Hi tucked his thin nose inside the collar of his coat as the wind whipped snowflakes into his face. "Mebby," he conjectured, "you're jealous 'cause I got me a date to take Sally to the dance and Christmas tree at the Elk's Hall tonight, which I can make, while you work."
The trainman was feeling very well about that setup. He and Eddie had been feuding over a buxom blonde who worked in the millinery department of the Bon Ton. Eddie's working hours didn't permit him to step Sally out except on his days off, while Hi was mostly on the road or at the other end of the division, so their rivalry had been sporadic.
Now Hi had maneuvered himself into a spot where he believed he had all the advantage on this festal night. He'd worked it so he had been called to flag a light engine down to Hugo and help Thirty-three back up the hump, and he'd act as swing man coming back. Thirty-three was a hotshot, due at Oberlin in the middle of the evening, usually on time; and this gave Hi the break he wanted.
"Sally told me she was going to wear all her pretties, just for me," he gloated. "That gal is sure a hot sketch! And can she dance!" Hi whistled with satisfaction.
Eddie Sand glinted a brief, derisive smile. His slim height matched Hi's ramshackle longitude. His hands were adept and sure, built to whip out clear Morse on the telegraph key. Eddie and Hi were as incorrigible a pair as drifted the iron highway. Firm friends on numberless escapades, they'd sympathetically cut each other's throat over a girl, and think it fun.
The wind was rising and its edge had been whetted. A switch engine shoved Eighteen's train of day coaches under the long sheds. George Nelson, her brakeman, came out of the station and stood beside them as he buttoned his overcoat.
"Mr. Nickerson's special is headed back this way," he said gloomily, "but there ain't no word that he's taken over the Prairie Central." He looked at them as if he hoped they'd deny this. "Guess the old boy didn't want us enough to buy," he muttered. "Well, if the Big Six gets us___" He ran an index finger around his throat from ear to ear and then walked dejectedly over to his train.
Most of the men of the Prairie Central would be feeling that way tonight. They'd not be celebrating Christmas very much with prospects so grim. The caller trumpeted monotonously inside the waiting-room where a bulging stove glowed red in the afternoon dusk. They'd put two extra coaches on Eighteen. Passengers streamed from the swinging doors and across the platform through the curtain of sliding flakes___city folk going to the country for the holidays, shoppers returning home, commuters. Most of them carried bundles; all had the bright expectancy that comes at Yuletide. They greeted George Nelson as he stood by the step helping the women with their packages. Some paused an instant to bestow a gift. George was gray and smiling. He'd been on that local run for ten years, and everybody liked him.
Dan Cadagan, the conductor, came from the trainman's room as Eighteen's engine backed down from the roundhouse and tied on. Big Dan was as blustering as a spring storm. A ring of white hair showed around the edge of his cap. Gold braid and buttons gleamed on his uniform. He was proud of that uniform and the gold stripes of service, won in honest performance of duty.
Tonight his broad, pink face wore a worried expression, the same look that haunted the PC these days, but it opened in a lengthwise grin as he saw Eddie and Hi.
"You two look like you'd lost your way in the storm," he said. "Haven't you got any place to hang up your stockings?"
"Mister," Hi declared, "I got all my socks on; and believe you me, I'll likely need more before the evening gets late."
Read the rest of this tale here.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
