The Mintage | Page 2

of the play.
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"Will she be there--will she be there?" I asked myself nervously.
She was there, all right, there at the gate. The Conductor was seemingly
as gratified as I. He turned his charges over to the old woman, who was
weeping for joy, and hugging the children between bursts of lavish,
loving Deutsch.
I climbed into a Parmelee bus and said, "Auditorium Annex, please."
And as I sat there in the bus, while they were packing the grips on top,
the Conductor passed by, carrying a tin box in one hand and his train
cap in the other.
I saw an Elk's tooth on his watch-chain.
I called to him, "I saw you help the babies--good boy!"
He looked at me in doubt.
"Those German children," I said; "I'm glad you were so kind to them!"

"Oh," he answered, smiling; "yes, I had forgotten; why, of course, that
is a railroad man's business, you know--to help everybody who needs
help."
He waved his hand and disappeared up the stairway that led to the
offices.
And it came to me that he had forgotten the incident so soon, simply
because to help had become the habit of his life. He may read this, and
he may not. There he was--big, bold, bluff and bronzed, his hair just
touched with the frost of years, and beneath his brass buttons a heart
beating with a desire to bless and benefit. I do not know his name, but
the sight of the man, carrying a child on each arm, their arms encircling
his neck in perfect faith, their long journey done, and he turning them
over in safety to their Grandmother, was something to renew one's faith
in humanity.
Even a great Railway System has a soul.
If you answer that corporations have no souls, I'll say: "Friend, you
were never more mistaken in your life. The business that has no soul
soon ceases to exist; and the success of a company or corporation turns
on the kind of soul it possesses. Soul is necessary to service. Courtesy,
kindness, honesty and efficiency are tangible soul-assets; and all good
railroad men know it."

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By taking thought you can add cubits to your stature.
TO THE WEST
To stand by the open grave of one you have loved, and feel the sky shut
down over less worth in the world is the supreme test.
There you prove your worth, if ever.

You must live and face the day, and face each succeeding day, realizing
that "the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on, nor all your
tears shall blot a line of it."
Heroes are born, but it is calamity that discovers them.
Once in Western Kansas, in the early Eighties, I saw a loaded
four-horse wagon skid and topple in going across a gully.
The driver sprang from his seat and tried to hold the wagon upright.
The weight was too great for his strength, powerful man though he was.
The horses swerved down the ditch instead of crossing it, and the
overturning wagon caught the man and pinned him to the ground.
Half a dozen of us sprang from our horses. After much effort the
tangled animals were unhitched and the wagon was righted.
The man was dead.
In the wagon were the wife and six children, the oldest child a boy of
fifteen. All were safely caught in the canvas top and escaped unhurt.
We camped there--not knowing what else to do.
We straightened the mangled form of the dead, and covered the body
with a blanket.
That night the mother and the oldest boy sat by the campfire and
watched the long night away with their dead.
The stars marched in solemn procession across the sky.
The slow, crawling night passed.
The first faint flush of dawn appeared in the East.
I lay near the campfire, my head pillowed on a saddle, and heard the
widowed mother and her boy talking in low but earnest tones.

"We must go back--we must go back to Illinois. It is the only thing to
do," I heard the mother moan.
And the boy answered: "Mother, listen to what I say: We will go
on--we will go on. We know where father was going to take us--we
know what he was going to do. We will go on, and we will do what he
intended to do, and if possible we will do it better. We will go on!"
That first burst of pink in the East had turned to gold.
Great streaks of light stretched from horizon to zenith.
I could see in the dim and hazy light the hobbled horses grazing across
the plain a quarter of a mile away.
The boy of fifteen arose and put fuel on the fire.