tonight and looking at my watch I found he had a good half hour to wait. Picking my way slowly clown through the intricate tracks and moving switches I came to the en gine, which stood panting softly and slowly like a human being husbanding its strength for a coming race. The big "Racer" towered high bove the rails and the setting sun reflected the polished surfaces which the Eastern shops had recently given it. No. 77 was truly a "thing of beauty" and with her six-foot-six drivers and immense boiler standing high on her frame, the electric head light perched in front of her short stack, the brightly polished bell and other evidences of thought and pride on the part of her builders and driver, she was well fitted to draw the "Fast Mail" on its swift flight down into the valley, and across the lowlands. As I approached, the headlight glared into my face and I noticed two bright green lights burning below it. I found the engineer, Jake Wilson--" Silent Jake" he was called— busily oiling around the massive drivers. Removing his cap and wiping his perspiring face lie bid me a welcome. Then I noticed for the first time a scar across his forehead which he had hitherto concealed beneath his oily cap. "Who follows you out tonight Mr. Wilson?" I asked, re ferring to the lights. "The General Manager; and I hope the 'Old Girl' wont go back on me. She is a little new yet and can't get down to steady running" he answered. As if surprised at the length of his speech, which however showed more of pride than of thoughtlessness, he hurried around to the other side of the "old Girl." Seeing Jim, the fireman, busily raking down the grates and keeping up the pointer in the steam gauge, I accepted his invitation to "climb up," rather glad to get out of the cold evening winds. Jake soon swung himself in and after cleaning his hands with a bundle of waste he looked at his watch. It was cer-
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers