Читать книгу Life of an American Workman онлайн

13 страница из 56

"Indians killed 'em," he would say, and then, while his great monster shook and reared across the land, he would point out other places where whites and redskins had fought and killed one another. On the run back, he always had the evening train out of Junction City. Waiting for that allowed us idle hours in which to see the sights at Brookville, but nothing gave me quite the thrill that came at nighttime, watching how he made that engine roar across the land.

At my father's nod the fireman would leap to sweaty action, swinging back the fire door with a devilish clang. In that moment of glare, each face in the cab turned as red as an Indian mask. With frantic grace the fireman would scoop coal from the tender, swinging the big shovel so expertly that the lumpy succession of black galaxies went in tight clusters to the center of the white-hot fire. Outside the engine cab the night would seem to moan and scream every time my father pulled the whistle cord. I watched the muscles writhe below the hair on his forearms when he used his hands to turn a cock or pull the throttle farther back upon its quadrant. I watched his face when he fixed his gleaming eyes in a gaze ahead into the headlight's yellow corridor through which we rode. The padded board on which I huddled bounced and throbbed and shook from side to side. Hot cinders bit me on the face.