" I watched carefully, raised and
guided the link in the opposite draw head, and then dropped the pin.
Those two cars came together like the crack of doom, and I shut my eyes
and jumped back, imagining that I had been crushed to death, in fact, I
could feel that my right hand was mashed to a pulp. But it was a false
alarm; it wasn't. I had made the coupling without a scratch to myself,
and it wasn't long before I became bolder, and jumped on and off of the
foot-boards and brake-beams like any other lunatic. That all four of us
were not killed is nothing short of miracle.
By a dint of hard work we succeeded in getting a train made up for
Chaminade, and all that was now needed was an engine and crew. There was
a large and very interested crowd of men standing around watching us,
and many a merry ha-ha we received from them for our crude efforts.
Engine 341 was hooked on, and we were all ready for the start. Burns was
going to play conductor, Bennett was to be the hind man, while I was to
ride ahead. But where were the engineer and fireman? Mr. Hebron had
counted on a non-union engineer to pull the train, and a wiper to do the
firing, but just as we expected them to appear, we found that some of
the strikers had succeeded in talking them over to their side.
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