""The handsome man did nothing but wring his hands; the plain one staid on the engine and tried to stop the steam from coming out, and was himself terribly injured.
""I was for weeks in bed and suffered mental agony much beyond the merely physical pain. I was so wicked I cursed my life and my Maker and prayed for death--yet I lived. I was so resentful, so heartbroken, so wicked, that I refused to speak for weeks, then, when I tried, I couldn"t, G.o.d had put the curse of silence on my wickedness."
"Think of Madelene being wicked, Chum.
""When I was getting well enough and reconciled to my own fate, enough to think of others, I thought of my two lovers. Then I asked my nurse for a gla.s.s. One look, and I made up my mind never to see either of them again.
""Both of them were clamoring to see me, and I refused to see either.
The plain man wrote me the only love letter I ever received. I have worn it out reading it. It was so manly, so unselfish! He blamed himself for the accident, and offered me his devotion and love, no matter in what condition the letter found me. This letter he wrote in Uncle Andrew"s library, left it open on the desk and--disappeared.
""I have never heard from him from that day to this. I never could understand it. A man that could write that letter, couldn"t run away.
The last sentence in his letter proved that. It said: "Remember, dear Madelene, that somewhere, somehow, I am thinking of you always; that whether you see me or not, you will some day come to know that I love your soul, not your face; that your life is dear to me, and no calamity can make any difference."
""Those were brave words, and after I read them, I knew for the first time that this was the man I loved. They told me he was frightfully disfigured, too, but that made no difference to me, I loved him. But he was gone, no one knew where. Why did he go?
""The handsome man disappeared the same day, and he never came back, but he left no letter.
""Dear Lottie, I have only now solved the mystery. My sometime nurse has just confessed that the night the letter was written the other man came to the house, like a thief, he had bribed her to give me drugs to make me sleep and then she led him into my room and showed him my scars. If he ever loved me at all, he was in love with my face; the other man loved me. One went away because he saw me, the other one because he saw his rival apparently granted the interview refused to him. My true lover must have seen that man sneaking up to my room."
"John, every fibre of my being danced for joy. I didn"t hear the rest, and she read several pages. I had heard enough.
"I went right out on the deck, begged pardon to begin with, introduced myself, confessed to eavesdropping, told who I was, where I had been and asked for that letter.
"I got it and Madelene"s picture; the one you have seen on my clock.
"I finished my task at Valparaiso while the vessel lay there, reported by mail, and came home on the same ship.
"I took that letter and photograph to Andy Bridges"s house and wrote across the envelope "Madelene Bridges, I demand your immediate and unconditional surrender, signed, Steadman H. Hopkins."
"And I got it in five minutes. Chum, that is the only case on record where something worth having was ever surrendered to an officer of the Peruvian government.
"In six months I was back on an engine in a new country, with my silent, loved and loving wife, in a new home. Three times before now someone has seen Madelene"s face, twice I told this story, and then we moved away; once I told it and trusted, and it was not repeated. Madelene can stand being a mystery and wondered at, but she cannot stand pity and curiosity. As for you, old Chum, I haven"t even asked you not to repeat what I have told you--I know you won"t."
After a long while, I turned to Hopkins and said: "And yet, Hopkins, fools say there is no romance in railroad life. This is a story worth reading, and some day I"d like to write it."
"Not in Madelene"s time, or in mine, Chum, but if ever a time comes, I"ll send you a token."
"Send me your picture, Hop."
"No, I"ll send you Madelene"s. No, I"ll send you the clock with the "talking eyes.""
And standing at Hopkins"s gate, the scar-faced man with the romance and I parted, like ships that meet, hail and pa.s.s on, never to meet again.
Hopkins and I moved away from one another, each on his own course, across the seven seas of life.
And all this happened almost twenty years ago.
The other day, my office boy brought me a card that read, "Mrs. Henry Adams, Washington, D. C." "Is she a book agent?" I asked.
"Nope, don"t look like one."
"Show her in."
A young woman came in, looked at me hard for a moment, laid a package on my desk and asked,
"Is this the Mr. Alexander who used to be an engineer?"
I confessed.
"I don"t suppose you remember me," she asked.
I put on my gla.s.ses and looked at her. No, I never--then she put her handkerchief up to her lips covering the lower part of her face; it was the face of Madelene Hopkins.
"Yes," said I, "I remember you perfectly, seventeen or eighteen years ago you used to sit on my knee and call me "Untle Tummy." and I called you Maddie."
Then we laughed and shook hands.
"Mr. Alexander," said she, "In looking over some of father"s papers, we came across a request that under certain conditions you were to be sent an old keepsake of his, a clock with mother"s picture on it. I have brought it to you."
"And your father and mother, what of them, my friend?" I asked, for the promise of that clock "under certain conditions" was coming back to me.
"Haven"t you heard, sir, poor papa and mama were lost in that awful wreck at Castleton, two years ago."
And as I write, from the dial of "Scar Faced" Hopkins"s clock "My Lady of the Eyes" looks down at me from across the mystery of eternity. The eyes do not change as once they did, or has age dimmed my sight and imagination? Long I look into their peaceful depths thinking of their story, and ask, "Dear Eyes, is it well with thee?"--and they seem to answer, "It is well."
SOME FREAKS OF FATE
I am just back from a visit to old scenes, old chums and old memories of my interesting experience on the western fringe of Uncle Sam"s great, gray blanket--the plains.
If some of these fellows who know more about writing than about running engines would only go out there for a year and keep their eyes and ears and brains open, and mouths shut, they could come home and write us some true stories that would make fiction-grinders exceedingly weary.
The frontier attracts strong characters, men with pioneer spirit, men who are willing to sacrifice something, in order to gain an end; men with loves and men with hates. Bad men are there, some of them hunted from Eastern communities, perhaps, but you will find no fools and mighty few weak faces--there"s character in every feature you look at.
Every one is there for a purpose; to accomplish something; to get ahead in the world; to make a new start; perhaps to live down something, or to get out of the rut cut by ancestors; some may only want to drink, and shout, and shoot, but even these do it with a vim--they mean it.
Of the many men who ran engines at the front, with me in the old days, I recall few whose lives were purposeless; almost every one had a life-story.
If there"s anything that I enjoy, it"s to sit down to a pipe and a life-story--told by the subject himself. How many have I listened to, out there, and every one of them worthy the pen of a Kipling!
The population of the frontier is never all made up of men, and the women all have strong features, too--self-sacrifice, devotion, degradation, or _something_, is written on every face. There are no blanks in that lottery--there"s little material there for homes of feeble-minded.
It isn"t strange, either, when you come to think of it; fools never go anywhere, they are just born and raised. If they move it"s because they are "took"--you never heard of a pioneer fool.
One of the strongest characters I ever knew was a runner out there by the name of Gunderson--Oscar Gunderson. He was of Swedish parentage, very light-complexioned, very large, and a splendid mechanic, as Swedes are apt to be when they try. Gunderson"s name was, I suppose, properly entered on the company"s time-book, but it never was in the nomenclature of the road. With the railroaders" gift for abbreviation and nickname, Gunderson soon came down to "Gun," his size, head, hand or heart furnished the prefix of "Big," and "Big Gun" he remains to-day. "Big Gun" among his friends, but simple "Gun" to me. I think I called him "Gun" from the start.