By The Thickness Of A Button

"Ah I therc you come at last, do you f The punch has had a full head of steam on this long time," cried old Engineer Zimmermann to eeveral sturdy figures, wno, deep buïied ia thick furs, that left only red noses and gleaming eyes esposed, carne pufflng, and stamping, and covered witk snow, into the engineer's room at Burglitz. It is New Year's eve, and the table in the engmeer's room is covered with an exoeptional neat white cloth, and on it, next the stove, stands the mighty bovfl', at which old Zimmermann ia vigorously working, while the clouds of steam that rise f rom it, and the empty rum-flasks that stand by it, leave no doubt that its contenta are devoted to go at high pressure into throats of boiler -iron a genuine engineer's punch. "The devil! Uncle Zimmermann; hard old Sylvester's day this, eh ?" cried' the new-eoniers, shaking off the snow onter boots, " Wkat do yott sugar-babies know of hard dnys in your glass houses, on your machines that rock you with tneir 'easy springs as gentle as Lf you were in your nurses' arms í Yuü ought to have stood with us back in '39 and '40 on the little machines that went so hard and jolting you feit every jog of the rai s, from the soles of your feet up under your caps, and that wouldn't budge a foot if the snow lay a hand's-breadth deep on the rails, and then we stood all outof-doors, night and day, without screen or shelter, summer and winter, the hottest day in July and the coldest day in December, without any protection but our coats and a buffalo outside coat, that had been well drubbed, I teil you, by the storms. That was something like hard times. But what do you know about it ? Per that matter, what's the worst you have to do to what they've put our Hennig through here to-day, who has come off A 1 from his examination ? And here he is now. " "Hallo! old fellow. How was it? How did it go ? Did they make you sweat? Come, sit down ! Bringon the punch I" were the exclamations poured on the new-comer from all sides. " Less noise there !" broke in che harsh voice of old Zimmermann. "Sit down? Yes! Punch? No! Hornig and Franz aren't here yet, that are I ing in with the freight. It is twenty minutes behind now, and must be in in a minute or two more. Giass and glass about for all ; that's fair play." " Well, now, " began the young candidate, wiping from his forehead the perspiration that broke out afresh at the recollection, "they gave it me well, I can teil you. I was examined by the new rules, yon know. There sat a row of chaps, I guess a rod long, and nary I ono of 'em, except our engine-master, ! lid I ever see on an engine or in a shop. And our engine-master wasn't the worst, either. They questioned me sharp, i that's a fact ; right up to the handle. But one could understand them, and give them somo sort of reasonable answer. But what the other fellows asked me I didn't more'n half understand. 'Twan't any railroad lingo they used ; and what they were driving at - well, yes, I know - I'd looked it up in the books Superintendent Herzel lent me, just to be ablo to answer. Never saw anything of it in service, never had any occasion for it, and don't believe I ever shallif I live tobe 100." "And what in th vinder was it all, then?" began one of the crowd, lighting his cigar, jnst as the door was suddenly thrown open. A cloud of snow buist in, and out of it emerged the dim forms of two new arrivals - the expected engineers of the two engines that had brought in the belated freight train. ' '■ Bravo ! Glad you've got here !" was the greeting that met them. ' ' Now pass round the punch, and let's have the solida in from what's-his-name's. " " Here's a bit of roast for one thing," cried one of the last arrived, and raised to view a half-scorched hare that he held by the hind legs. "Where did you get that creature? And what are you goiag to do wiüihimf" "This fellow wished to do himself the honor of making a part of Hening's treat to night, but probably was in too much of a hnrry, and did himseïf a little too brown," laughed the possessor of the hare. "The red lights of jny 'Pluto' routed him out of the hole in the snow where he sat crouched on the bank as comfortabie as you please, and he began to run a wager with our train. For two or three minutes, perhaps, I saw the stupid little black rascal skimming over the snow in the second track alongsido the engine. I gave a short pfiff! That scarfd him; he put out on a spurt, got ahead into the red light of tho signal lantern - perhaps that blinded him - he doubled before the engine as he would bef oí o a dog, right across the track. I looked to the other sido to see when he woutd come in sight again, but he didn't appear, I thougnt he was either killed or had run back under the train, and forgot the creature. But when Wd goi to Seestadt, and the grate oí iny engine was being cieaued Bftt, the fellow down underneath there with the poker called out from the ash-hole: ' Hornig, Hornig, you've brought a roast with you. I believe the fire of the Pluto has scorched the fellow's brains. Come down and see ! Sure enough, as true as I sit here, there lay my hare underneath in my ashbox, dead and half stewcd. The ash-box nrapt have caught him on the jump. He Was in a hurry to be roasted." Loud langhter followed th youns; engineer's story. "Now laugh, will you, you stupid blockhead, at tho poor beast !" growled Eimmermann, as he filled the glasses; " beoause you don't know what a cursed' pleasant feeling one has nnder pji ashbox." "And do you know that, then?" cried several voices, in tones of strong doubt. "I know everything, as you rascáis know right well, and have been through everything that can happen between tho underside of the rails and the top of the smoke-staok. " "But you haven't been in the ashbox?" laughed the company, a little derisively. "Not exaetly," replied the old nian, very gravely, "lnt Uhdur it, andpartly, too, very ümi in it. But I teil you, I Ve been by when a splendid train of inagniflcent cars, full of people in high spirits, with one jolt - beforo you could lift your hand to your pipe or light a match- -was nothing but a heap of kindling-wood and brokeü screws and pieces of axles and wheels, out oí whitjh came groans and crrés fot help, Whiie despairing men sfcóM Vöünd it wringing their haháq; ánd locomotives, like kitteus on a roof, leaped down the bank, and rolled once, twice, three times over and over, wheels up aiid smoke-stack underneatln, atd all was steam, fragrnents, fire, hissing, and shrieks; but uever m nve-ana-tmrty years raiiroading has my heart stood so stül as it did under the ash box." "Teil us about it, Uncle Zim, teil I ns !." cried voices one could see were used to making themselves hoard above the clatter, rattle, and alnnk öf the locomotive. ' Well, well! Dl do it," he replied, as he slo-y undid his tobáceo pouch Ba began to fill hi8 short pipe, "though I don't like to go over the story. To this day there's always somothing turns over under the third ribhere Vfhen I tbink of ifc. "You see, boys, the bands that worked this punch ín those days carne near beiug the hands öf a widow then, and rny Cari and Julia weren't born yet, though you might e Ven then have calle d me Stout Franz." 11 Ëut what's that to do with it, uncle?" asked the circlfc "Weil, then, in the d 's name; light up yoür plagued elegant cigars egain. They suit you dolls in glass cases, as the short pipe suits us stout feliows unaer tne irée neaveus. m, the glasses this way, and then hold your jaw till I get through. " It was upon New Year's eve, in the year 1845, thirty years ago, and a devil of a storm, driving snow and sleet mixed together. I was a young fellow; I'd been married about a year. You know the station is a horrible place for service. Let a storm come which way it wil!, it always sweeps clean across the square that's open and level as the top of this table. In toward the town there is a little cut with two tracks, ono or the other of which always chokes up in the first hour of a drifting snow. Just as you get through the cut, in the third house in Garden street, behind the oilmills that we of ten cursed for a nuisance, because we always had to shut off steam going by for fear of the sparks from the chimney catching in the shingle roof, I lived with my Louise and Franz, just born, who is superintendent now over at Budrich's. " So, on Sylvester-eve, 1845, 1 came into the station with a heavy freight j train from Griesthal, after standing for fourteen hours on the engine in a storm at six below. I was frezen stiff as an icicle, and glad enough, you bet, to get hold of the Sylvester punch. It was getting dusk already as I came in, and through the whirl of ghstening flakes, saw the station with its hundreds on hundreds of lights, like a huge Christmas-box. A poor Christmasbox for i me ! There were collected through the holidays a regular town of cars, something like 500 of them, and they'dgot to be all made up so that everything could be off directly after New Year's. Hardly hd I got off my engine in the enginehouse when txp comes the station-master, and says to me : " ' Hauser is taken sick, and yoxx will have to take No. 3 in his place.' "'Ten thousand thunders!' said I; ' but I hope it won't last till midnight Mr. Station-master, ior then I must be at home, or there's ill-luck for the new year.' " ' Fiddlesticks !' said he ; ' only you be sure you're on hand,' and away ho was gene in the driving snow. " I thought I'd taken the matter more to heart than it was worth, and laid the cold shiver that crept over my skin to the uncanny blast that came snorting at me as I came out with the engine. The whole air was fuJl of white snow, and aa tho wreaths of it drove like white ghosts across the engine, I could hardly see the smoke-stack. " Of the iight-signals one caught only now and then a glimpse, red, white, or green ; of the horn and pipe signáis, what with the howWng of the wind about the cars and car-wheels, and its singing in the telegraph wires, and the wHstling of the engines, one heard only enough to be sure one had not understood them. Of the shoutei of the men one could make just nothiug but that they shouted. " Then there were a couple of lmndreu cars being shunted about in all directions at tho same timo ; on all sides they came looming like great shadows out of the darkness and thick pnow, and straight vanished in it again. The poor tenders, wet to the skin, up to their knees ín snow, sprang this way nnd that between tho rolling cars. You know how a distributiug station looks of a winter night. God only knows how 'tis we 're not all made mince-meat of in the course of it ; and I've all my life long been surprised when next morning I haven't heard that this one or that was killed on the spot. And if anything does happen, the strict gentlemen at the gieen table in their warm office up there out with the rules out of their pockets. To bo sure, it is the only way. But if they would only just for once in their lives take the troublo to look on themselves outside ! "That night, then, it was right bad, and the punch, too, muy have touched the men's heads a little beforehand, for the ringing went at a rate as if Satan himself was giving th orders. l the cars flew so this way and that, and c the Kghts went by like flashes, and J everywhere one heard tbe groaning and i clinking of the buffers crashing together, 1 and the men crept about uhtlei MA be, tween the cars aa if the -vyheels were gingerbread and the buffers downy pili lowa, But bef ore all there was a wretch1 ed little assistant station-master I could not bear the man, because he once carne very much in my way in a certain mafcr -but I could not help loökiag m amazö1 ment as I paw Uis 'si'gnal lantern everywhere, öwinging in an inch, swinging hórizontally, swinging crosswise, up, down, behind, before, and heard his shrill voice tlirough all the storm. And see, I'd just calied to the mail as I saw rum slip through bètwëen two buffers, tjat he ought not to be so devilish J less, in a storth wlïere one oouid neithor see nor hear a üiüig, and might slit? down into the bargain, Bfit líe liiid Wughed M. mp, añil calied out: ' Yon atteild to your oto work, Zimmermann, and never mind me; we must be through before midnight - forward, forward!' and away ke was gone. I had calied af ter him with a good will: ' Tothe devil with you, then !' and thatl shn.ll notforgetmy Ufe long5 but Shall tíiínk of it I wítli áoirrüw Olí my death-bed." Here the old engineer made a pauso, wiped his forehead, took a draught from his I glass of Dunch, and went on: "I heard him still giving the order 1 Forward ! ' yonder among my coinradea, and heard the carchaiüs clink, and then a sound--what h'ke was it have yóu ever heard a butcher kp.ck throUgt a thick bone with his ax } - and then a dull Üry, and then again, only the cling and clang of the buffers ciashing together. A cold shudder ran over me; then I got the signal to go ahoad - there was no stopping, 'Forward, forward!' Iu a moment I was far away in the other end of the yard, where no one could know what had happehed. "But I did my duty still, only as-if I ' was dreaming, and when, a half hour later, we had got through and I entered the engine-hoase again, the boss sail to me, ' Have yon heard, Zimtnerman, Asistent Stationlnaster Porges has been killed on the spot, erushed to death between the buffers?' "I didn't ask many questions ; my very heart shuddered, and I don't know how I took care of my engine and got on the T?ay hoiiie. As I passed by the stairs, I saw a group with lanterns standing there, and something covered with a cloak Lying on the snow., I didn't Stop ; I shivered all over ; and í cah tëll you, boys, I'd have given heaven knows what if I hadn't wished him to the devil half an hour before. 1 tried hard to get that out of my head. I meant nothing particular by it ; 'twas a way of talking common with us. Among you yoúng chaps it's worse yet, and it wouid cure you if you once felí the crawling inside of you that I have. Well, at last I made out to get thinking of the warm room at home there with the feit slippers all ready, and Louise and the voungster, and the lemons on the tabïe, and the j cat and the tea-kettle singing, and by degrees I began to feei a little lighter. " Now, with all thïs, and of this and that, you'il readily believe t hadn't too much heed to wind and weather, road or pathway ; and all I knew was, it was whirling and howling yet in the air as I entered the cut by the oil-mill, through which I might have seen the Windows i of my house, if one could have seen j anything at all ten paces off. I went j ahead on the righthand track of the two in the cut becausa that was freer from snow, and froni that side.1 could see my house sooñer. "And, in truth, I went aloiig quite carelessly, for I was going from the yard, and that was the in-track, so no train could come on me from behind, and at that hour none wasto be expected i in front. Besides, I must hare heard it I coming. " Just as I was in the middle of the cut, which Iie3, you know, in the curve, j and where that night one could not see a car length off, I heard a whistle behind me, and right after it the clip and clap of the approaching train. I noticed, too, that the ecgine was jrashing the ! train before it, becanse the stroke of the engine was much farther behind than the rolling of the wheels. I thought, ' Ah ! that is the reserve train of sonie twenty pair of wheels that stood yonder ahead on the track, and that they are j shunting over to the freight-house.' But all this passed only vaguely through my mind, as one always thinks mechanically of' his work even when his head and heart are full of other things. I say vaguely ; in reality I didn't feel the I slightest intereet in it, for the train mast directly pass me on the other track. But when the ping and pang of the wheels on the f rozen track had got quite close up, and I already heard the coupling-chain on the foremost car cïinking back and forth, and saw the light of its signal-lantern begin to glide by me on the snow, I partly tuined my head to cali out a ' Happy New-Year !' to the fellows upon the train. "But there was no train on the track; and at the same instant I got a violent blow in the back. The sparks danced before my eyes - slap ! - I lay flat on my face on the track, and, pung ! pung ! the cars began to pass over me." Here the old engineer made another pause. It was sbill as death in the room, and faces breathless and riveted leaned forward and round the table. He filled tiae glasses again, pressed down the tobáceo in his pipe, and went on : "You see, boys, when we sit hero this way round the table, or stand on the engine, or even, like poor Hornig bere today, have to go through a squtieze by those examiners, our ideas come along one after the other, slowly and in some sort of order, so thrit one can take a good look at 'em. They even say we engineers are slower than other men, because all the quiknessis gone out of us into our engines. But, boys, in the second or so between the blow and my lying flat on the ground, I did more thinking than ever I did beforo or since from Easter to Wiiitsuntide. "Firstabout home, the warm room and everything in it, and the New Year's chimes, and the going to chnrch in the morning; then the assistant station- master as he lay there under the cloak on the snow ; aud then I began reckoning as distinctly as if I was giving the orders for making up all the trains, about the train that was passing over me. How was it it was on the wrong track, the one I'd been on, coming out on the in-track? And then all at once I thought, what before in the midst of my cogitating I had forgotte - the outward track I had seen as early as noon already deep buried in snow, and that was why they wero coming out on the in-track. Then I saw plain enough the train Just as it stood; thero püttldnt be more than ten or elov n freight-oirs, all our bwn cS, they all want high above the raila- they would, do mñ n harm. I lay flat enough betweeñ the raiís. Un the eugineö- the ash-boxes of ihe en gines ! I knew s,H ihrefe etlgihea tha I stiil Stoód Üred lip at tlie station as wel as my tobacco-pouch. The ' Wittekind would go harmless enough over me even though I had been stouter than ] was; tke 'Hermann,' too, might be merciful to me, at any rats if it was carryingUttle water and. fire, ahd the sleetj ers uii'f1e' me clicin't Btaiid üp too much but under the 'Slius,' one of the new, lew-built elepbants, I was a dead man. Ay ! dead ? That wouldn't be the worst. I should be slowly crushed and torn into slireds. Which engine was it, then, coming there ! "All this, you see, boys,I had thought between the blow and the lyifig flat ; but when I WáS öncö dpwh) all calcula' tíou ceasedj ahd it yas íut biV itigtibet I stretchen mJ-Self büinnd held my breath uncí made myself thin as au otter that's trying to get out from a trap, and counted the axles that passed on over me. Every ping and pang spoke distinotly out in syllables, ' A -wretch-ed death, a wretched death!' And now something heavy eatches hold of me 1 Ho, it is not'Üng ybtií oílíy graSes fB8, and glides clinking its length along over me and off, striking a chili to my marrow - it is a obain hanging down. But now it comes ! the ground begins, at first gently, then stronger and stronger, to trerablo under me; it comes very slowly. Then I saw at the side that the rails and the snow and the rolling wheel-sliadows Over me gïuiy jiver roddeh ieddef. It Vi-as the englne flre shining from the ashbox. Now I feit it grow hot on my bare head and neck. The sleepers yielded under me ; the rails groaned and bent ; the ground shook violen tly; it is on me. It slrikes me violently in the back, pressen forward - God have mercy on me 1 Then rip , crack ! something on me gave way. Pang ! pang ! rolling ! thundering ! stamping ! - the engine had passed over. me and off. From the free heaven once more the snow cloud I plunged down upon me. I " How I got on rny lega I don't know. I stood there, I shook myself, and saw the red lights of the engine disappear round the curve. They looked to me like the eyes of a veritabíe bodily death. Then I feít myself to see what the engine had turned loóse ; and, behold ! the regulation buttons were gone írom my coat behind. " I went to the nearest switch -tender and got a lantern and looked for the buttons ifa the snow ; but when we were sitting round the bowl at home, and I was putting in first too muoh rum and then too mlich sügar, Louiso, wondering, asked : "'Husband, what's the matter with you ? You tremble so and don't speak a word.' "Thfn my sense and speech came to me again, and I showed Louise the buttons, and told her the story, and, holding up a button 'twixt finger and thumb; said: " ' See, within so much of a horrible üiglifc l' BT1 hlislaj 1 +- "Look I I have the buttons yet, and mean to carry them till death comes in reality." The old man opened his coat and drew out two buttons, Stamped with the King's arms, which he wore secured by a string about his neck. " And now you know why I pitied the poor creature in the ash-box. I have told you the story because it came up in the talk, but I don't like to speak of it, because the agony of death was it, and that's something no man calis to mind willingly. But hark ! 12 o'clock ! Good luck to us all for the New Year ; and any number of hundred thousand tive miles !"-