Prince Dusty: A Story of the Oil Regions

Brakeman Joe did not love tramps. His regular work was hard enough, goodness knows; and when, in addition to it, he had to make a thorough examination of the whole train at every stopping-place, peering, by the light of his lantern, between and underneath the cars for tramps, who might be stealing a ride, he felt that he had good cause to dislike them. Sometimes he had hard tussles before dislodging them from their perches and roosts, and many an ugly blow had he received while performing this duty. Joe had, therefore, learned to deal very promptly, not to say roughly, with this portion of the travelling public whenever he found them on or in the cars under his charge.

On this particular night he had made sure, before starting, that there was not a single tramp on the train, and had in consequence been anticipating a comparatively easy trip. And now he had, as he supposed, discovered a whole nest of them snugly stowed away in car No. 201. A dog too! It was aggravating, and, under the circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that he hustled them out of there without much regard to their feelings.

Both Arthur and Uncle Phin had been suddenly awakened, and greatly alarmed, when Brakeman Joe first slammed and locked the door of the car in which they had taken refuge from the storm. They had a confused idea that they had been asleep, though for how long they could not tell, and now they could no longer see the lighted clock above the railway station. It might even be midnight, and time for their train to come along for all they knew. They shouted, and kicked against the locked door, and Rusty barked; but all in vain. The conductor and Brakeman Joe had walked away before these noises began, and there was no one else to hear them.

Then the engine came and pushed and pulled the car about until they had not the slightest idea of the direction in which they were moving. It might be forward or backward, east or west, for all they could tell. Nor was their situation improved when the train, of which car No. 201 finally formed a part, pulled out of the railway yard, and started on its long journey. They had no idea which way it was going, and Arthur could have cried as he reflected that they might be travelling in exactly the opposite direction from that they wished to take, and might be carried hundreds of miles before their car door was again unlocked. As he could not do this, because he was a Dale, he only hugged little Rusty, and tried to be comforted by Uncle Phin’s assurances “Dat de good Lawd was er gwine ter keer for dem, jes like He did fer de sparrers, whose hairs was all counted so as dey shouldn’ fall to de groun.”

Arthur’s unhappiness was increased by the fact that he could nowhere feel his precious book. It had slipped from his grasp as he slept, and now was nowhere to be found. Thus the first stage of their journey by rail was a most unhappy one, and they were glad to forget their sorrows in the sleep that again overcame them a few minutes before the train made its first stop.

The Arden station was a very small one, in a lonely place, with no houses near it. It was only a platform with a freight shed at one end, and a more forlorn place for a stranger to be left on a dark, stormy night, could hardly be imagined. Arthur and Uncle Phin were not conscious of the train stopping here, and were only awakened from their troubled sleep by the light from Brakeman Joe’s lantern flashing in their faces. They were just sitting up and gazing at him, in a bewildered way, when this energetic young man hustled them out of the car in his roughest manner. It was so rough, in fact, that poor Uncle Phin, impelled by a violent push, slipped on the wet platform, and fell heavily. He struck one of his knees such a painful blow that, for a few moments, he was unable to rise, and lay there groaning.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself to treat an old man so!” cried Arthur to Brakeman Joe, as with flashing eyes and quivering lips he sprang to his companion’s side, and endeavored to assist him to his feet.

“Well, what business has the old tramp got to be stealing a ride on my train?” replied the brakeman, sulkily, though at the same time bending over Uncle Phin and helping him up.

He was not a bad-hearted young man, this Brakeman Joe; but he was overworked, and much bothered by tramps. Generally he was good-natured, and was especially kind and gentle with old people, for he had an old father at home of whom he was the sole support, and to whom he was devoted. He had not noticed, in the dim light, that Uncle Phin was old and white-headed. He had only regarded him as a tramp, who, as everybody knows, is apt to be young and strong, and well able to perform the labor that he refuses to undertake out of sheer laziness. So now he helped the prostrate figure to its feet, said he hoped the old fellow was not much hurt, and then returned to his task of dragging the six sacks of meal, that were to be left at Arden, from the car.

“What’s the matter here, Joe?” asked the conductor of the train, stepping up at this moment.

“Only a couple of stowaways that I found stealing a ride in this car,” was the answer.

“Tramps, eh?” said the conductor, sharply, flashing the light from his lantern upon the two trembling figures who stood behind him. “A dog, too,” he continued, “and I’ll warrant they stole it. I’ve a mind to take it in payment for their ride. If this was a town I’d have you fellows arrested and locked up in less than no time. You, and all your kind, ought to be killed off for the good of the country. As it is I’ll leave you here to soak in the rain for the rest of the night, and perhaps some of the worthlessness will be washed out of you by morning. Hello! what’s this?”

Here the conductor stooped and picked up a small object over which Brakeman Joe had stumbled, and which he had sent flying out on to the platform.

It was a book, and the conductor picked it up, wondering where it could have come from. “‘Andersen’s Fairy Tales,’” he read aloud, holding it up to his lantern. “The very book my little Kitty was asking me to get for her only the other day! Well, if this isn’t a find!” Then, turning to the fly-leaf, he read aloud: “To Prince Dusty, from——”

Here he was interrupted by Arthur, who sprang forward, and, stretching out his hand for the book, cried: “Please, sir, it’s mine; and I should feel dreadfully to lose it, and we aren’t tramps, and didn’t mean to steal a ride. We got locked in by accident, and we have money enough to pay for everything, and oh! please don’t leave us here in this lonely place.”

The conductor stared at the boy in amazement. “Well, you do look like a ‘little Dusty’ sure enough, though I can’t say that you are exactly what I should have fancied a Prince was. Who are you, anyway? And where do you want to go to?”

Then Arthur, who was completely covered with white dust from the meal sacks on which he had been sleeping, told the conductor, in as few words as possible, of the object of their journey, and how they happened to be locked into car No. 201. He finished by repeating that they had money, and would willingly pay for the privilege of riding further on the train, provided it was bound east. This last question was asked most anxiously, for as yet the boy had not the slightest idea of where they were.

“Bound east!” exclaimed the conductor. “Of course we are, and there goes the ‘New York Limited’ now.” As he spoke, an express train, of heavy vestibuled cars, thundered past them, with a roar and a crash, at such tremendous speed that in a second it was gone, and its two red eyes, looking backward, seemed to wink mockingly at the snail-like freight train, as they were whisked out of sight.

“Now,” said the conductor as the roar of the express dying away permitted his voice to be again heard, “I’ll tell you what I will do. You say you are not tramps, and didn’t mean to stow away in that car, and that you have money enough to pay for your trip. That all may be so, and it may not. At any rate I haven’t time to investigate your story now, for we must pull out of here at once. So you and the old man and the dog just tumble into that caboose, and I’ll carry you along a bit further. We’ll see about paying for the trip when you decide how far you want to go, and you shall read a story out of your book to Brakeman Joe and me, to pay for the ride you have already had. But mind,” he added threateningly as Arthur began to thank him, “if I find that you have been telling me any lies, I’ll have you arrested and locked up in the very first town we come to.”