Riding On The Locomotive

Put your foot in the stirrup and swing yourself aboard. The engiueer's little oabin is a regular howdah for an elephaut. It is a princely way of making a royal progress. The engineer bids you take that cushioned seat by the right hand window. Yon hear the gurgle of the engine's feverish pulse, and the hiss of a whole oommunity of tea kettles. There is bis steam clock with its finger on tho figure. There ia his time clook. Ono says sixty pounds of steam. The other forty miles an hour. A little bell on the wall before hiui strikes. That was the conductor. He said, " Pull out," and he pulls. The brazen bell, like a goblet wrong side up, spills out a great clangor. The whistle gives two sharp quick notes. The driver swings back the lever. The engine's slender arms begin to feel slowly in her cylindrical pockets for something they never find, and never tire of feeling for. Great unwashed fleeces are counted out slowly from the smokestack. Tho f urnace doors open faBter and faster. The faces of the clock dials shine in the bursts of light like newly washed school children's that are polished off with a crash towel. The lever is swung a little farther down. The search for things gets lively. Fleeces are getting plentitr. The coal goes into the furnace and out at the chimney like the great beat of a great black artery. There is a brisk breeze that makes your hair stream like a comet's. The locomotivo is ulive with reserved power. It has a sentimental tremor as it hugs the track, and hurls itself along sixty feet for every tick of the clock - as if you should walk twenty paces while your heart beats once ! First you get the idea, and next the exhilaration of power in motion. - Ben). F. Taylor.