(The boys in
the shops where he was built used to read wonderful stories of
railroad life, and .007 expected things to happen as he had heard.)
But there did not seem to be many vestibuled fliers in the roaring,
rumbling, electric-lighted yards, and his engineer only said:
"Now, what sort of a fool-sort of an injector has Eustis loaded on
to this rig this time?" And he put the lever over with an angry
snap, crying: "Am I supposed to switch with this thing, hey?"
The collarless man mopped his head, and replied that, in the present
state of the yard and freight and a few other things, the engineer
would switch and keep on switching till the cows came home. .007
pushed out gingerly, his heart in his headlight, so nervous that the
clang of his own bell almost made him jump the track. Lanterns
waved, or danced up and down, before and behind him; and on every
side, six tracks deep, sliding backward and forward, with clashings
of couplers and squeals of hand-brakes, were cars - more cars than
.007 had dreamed of. There were oil-cars, and hay-cars, and
stock-cars full of lowing beasts, and ore-cars, and potato-cars with
stovepipe-ends sticking out in the middle; cold-storage and
refrigerator cars dripping ice water on the tracks; ventilated
fruit- and milk-cars; flatcars with truck-wagons full of market-stuff;
flat-cars loaded with reapers and binders, all red and green and
gilt under the sizzling electric lights; flat-cars piled high with
strong-scented hides, pleasant hemlock-plank, or bundles of shingles;
flat-cars creaking to the weight of thirty-ton castings, angle-irons,
and rivet-boxes for some new bridge; and hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of box-cars loaded, locked, and chalked.
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