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Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

"The Day's Work - Volume 1"

When he waves his hand that
way, things happen."
A string of loaded cars slid out down the track, and a string of
empties took their place. Bales, crates, boxes, jars, carboys,
frails, cases, and packages flew into them from the freight-house
as though the cars had been magnets and they iron filings.
"Ki-yah!" shrieked little Poney. "Ain't it great?"
A purple-faced truckman shouldered his way to the yard-master, and
shook his fist under his nose. The yard-master never looked up
from his bundle of freight receipts. He crooked his forefinger
slightly, and a tall young man in a red shirt, lounging carelessly
beside him, hit the truckman under the left ear, so that he dropped,
quivering and clucking, on a hay-bale.
"Eleven, seven, ninety-seven, L. Y. S.; fourteen ought ought three;
nineteen thirteen; one one four; seventeen ought twenty-one M. B.;
and the ten westbound. All straight except the two last. Cut 'em
off at the junction. An' that's all right. Pull that string."
The yard-master, with mild blue eyes, looked out over the howling
truckmen at the waters in the moonlight beyond, and hummed:
"All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lawd Gawd He made all!"
.


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