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Page 2
"You'd better get to the crossing if you're making any pretense of real
work," suggested Bart just then.
As he spoke Bart pointed through the open window across the tracks to
the switch shanty at the side of the street crossing.
A train was coming. Mr. Lemuel Wacker was "subbing" as extra for the
superannuated old cripple whose sole duty was to wave a flag as trains
went by. To this duty Wacker sprang with alacrity.
Bart dismissed the man from his mind, and, whistling a cheery tune, bent
over the book in which he had been writing for the past twenty minutes.
This was the register of the local express office of the B. & M., and
at present, as Bart had said, he was "running it."
The express shed was a one-story, substantial frame building having two
rooms. It stood in the center of a network of tracks close to the
freight depot and switch tower, and a platform ran its length front and
rear.
Framed by the window an active railroad panorama spread out, and beyond
that view the quaint town of Pleasantville.
Bart had spent all his young life here. He knew every nook and corner of
the place, and nearly every man, woman and child in the village.
Pleasantville did not belie its name to Bart's way of thinking. He voted
its people, its surroundings, and life in general there, as pleasant as
could well be.
Here he was born, and he had found nothing to complain of, although he
was what might be called a poor boy.
There were his mother, his two sisters and two small brothers at home,
and sometimes it took a good deal to go around, but Bart's father had a
steady job, and Bart himself was an agreeable, willing boy, just at the
threshold of doing something to earn a living and wide-awake for the
earliest opportunity.
Mr. Stirling had been express agent for the B. & M. for eight years,
and was counted a reliable, efficient employee of the company.
For some months, however, his health had not been of the best, and Bart
had been glad when he was impressed into service to relieve his father
when laid up with his occasional foe, the rheumatism, or to watch the
office at mealtimes.
Bart was on duty in this regard at the present time. It was about five
in the afternoon, but it was also the third of July, and that date, like
the twenty-fourth of December, was the busiest in the calendar for the
little express office.
All the afternoon Bart had worked at the desk or helped in getting out
packages and boxes for delivery.
A little handcart was among the office equipment, and very often Bart
did light delivering. On this especial day, however, in addition to the
regular freight, Fourth of July and general picnic and celebration goods
more than trebled the usual volume, and they had hired a local teamster
to assist them.
With the 4:20 train came a new consignment. The back room was now nearly
full of cases of fruit, a grand boxed-up display of fireworks for
Colonel Harrington, the village magnate, another for a local club, some
minor boxes for private family use, and extra orders from the city for
the village storekeepers.
It was an unusual and highly inflammable heap, and when tired Mr.
Sterling went home to snatch a bite of something to eat, and lazy Lem
Wacker came strolling into the place, pipe in full blast, Bart had not
hesitated to exercise his brief authority. A spark among that tinder
pile would mean sure and swift destruction. Besides, light-fingered Lem
Wacker was not to be trusted where things lay around loose.
So Bart had squelched him promptly and properly. The man for whom "Lem"
was good enough, was in his opinion pretty nearly good for nothing.
Bart made the last entry in the register with a satisfied smile and
strolled to the door stretching himself.
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