Steve and the Steam Engine Part 20

"That would be bully."

"It is a simple trip which you can easily make alone. If you like, you can start along now," Mr. Tolman suggested.

"But you said last night that if I would hurry to bed, to-day you would tell me about the Western railroads," objected Stephen.

He saw his father's eyes twinkle.

"You have a remarkable memory," replied he. "I recall now that I did say something of the sort. But surely you do not mean that you would prefer to remain here and talk railroads than to go to the Zoo."

"I can go to the Zoo after you have gone out," maintained Steve, standing his ground valiantly.

"You are a merciless young beggar," grinned his father. "I plainly see that like Shylock you are determined to have your pound of flesh. Well, sit down. We will talk while I smoke."

As the boy settled contentedly into one of the comfortable chintz-covered chairs, Mr. Tolman blew a series of delicate rings of smoke toward the ceiling and wrinkled his brow thoughtfully.

"You got a pretty good idea at the theater last night what America was before we had trans-continental railroads," began he slowly. "You know enough of geography too, I hope, to imagine to some extent what it must have meant to hew a path across such an immense country as ours; lay a roadbed with its wooden ties; and transport all this material as well as the heavy rails necessary for the project. We all think we can picture to ourselves the enormity of the undertaking; but actually we have almost no conception of the difficulties such a mammoth work represented."

He paused, half closing his eyes amid the cloud of smoke.

"To begin with, the promoters of the enterprise received scant encouragement to attack the problem, for few persons of that day had much faith in the undertaking. In place of help, ridicule cropped up from many sources. It was absurd, the public said, to expect such a wild-cat scheme to succeed. Why, over six hundred miles of the area to be covered did not contain a tree and in consequence there would be nothing from which to make cross-ties. And where was the workmen's food to come from if they were plunged into a wilderness beyond the reach of civilization? The thing couldn't be done. It was impossible. Of course it was a wonderful idea. But it never could be carried out. Where were the men to be found who would be willing to take their lives in their hands and set forth to work where Indians or wild beasts were liable to devour them at any moment? Moreover, to build a railroad of such length would take a lifetime and where was the money coming from? For you must remember that the men of that period had no such vast fortunes as many of them have now, and it was no easy task to finance a scheme where the outlay was so tremendous and the probability of success so shadowy. Even as late as 1856 the whole notion was considered visionary by the greater part of the populace."

"But the fun of doing it, Dad!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Stephen, with sparkling eyes.

"The fun of it!" repeated his father with a shrug. "Yes, there was fun in the adventure, there is no denying that; and fortunately for the dreamers who saw the vision, men were found who felt precisely as you do. Youth always puts romance above danger, and had there not been these romance lovers it would have gone hard with the trans-continental railroads. We might never have had them. As it was, even the men who ventured to cast in their lot with the promoters had the caution to demand their pay in advance. They had no mind to be deluded into working for a precarious wage. At length enough toilers from the east and from the west were found who were willing to take a chance with their physical safety, and the enterprise was begun."

Stephen straightened up in his chair.

"Had the only obstacle confronting them been the reach of uncharted country ahead that would have been discouraging enough. Fancy pus.h.i.+ng your way through eight hundred miles of territory that had never been touched by civilization! And while you are imagining that, do not forget that the slender ribbon of track left behind was your only link with home; and your only hope of getting food, materials, and sometimes water. Ah, you would have had excitement enough to satisfy you had you been one of that company of workmen! On improvised trucks they put up bunks and here they took turns in sleeping while some of their party stood guard to warn them of night raids from Indians and wild beasts.

Even in the daytime outposts had to be stationed; and more than once, in spite of every precaution, savages descended on the little groups of builders, overpowered them, and slaughtered many of the number or carried away their provisions and left them to starve. Sometimes marauders tore up the tracks, thereby breaking the connection with the camps in the rear from which aid could be summoned; and in early railroad literature we find many a tale of heroic engineers who ran their locomotives back through almost certain destruction in order to procure help for their comrades. Supply trains were held up and swept clean of their stores; paymasters were robbed, and sometimes murdered, so no money reached the employees; every sort of calamity befell the men. Hundreds of the ten thousand Chinese imported to work at a microscopic wage died of sickness or exposure to the extreme heat or cold."

"Gee!" gasped Stephen, "I'd no idea it was so bad as all that!"

"Most persons have but a faint conception of the price paid for our railways--paid not alone in money but in human life," answered Mr.

Tolman. "The route of the western railroads, you see, did not lie solely through flat, thickly wooded country. Our great land, you must remember, is made up of a variety of natural formations, and in crossing from the Atlantic coast to that of the Pacific we get them one after another. In contrast to the forests of mighty trees, with their tangled undergrowth, there were stretches of prairie where no hills broke the level ground; another region contained miles and miles of alkali desert, dry and scorching, where the sun blazed so fiercely down on the steel rails that they became too hot to touch. Here men died of sunstroke and of fever; and some died for want of water. Then directly in the railroad's path arose the towering peaks of the Sierras and Rockies whose snowy crests must be crossed, and whose cold, storms and gales must be endured.

Battling with these hards.h.i.+ps the workmen were forced to drill holes in the rocky summits and bolt their rough huts down to the earth to prevent them from being blown away."

"I don't see how the thing could have been done!" Steve exclaimed, with growing wonder.

"And you must not forget to add to the chapter of tribulations the rivers that barred the way; the ravines that must either be filled in or bridged; the rocks that had to be blasted out; and the mountains that must be climbed or tunneled."

"I don't see how they ever turned the trick!" the boy repeated.

"It is the same old tale of progress," mused his father. "Over and over again, since time began, men have given their lives that the world might move forward and you and I enjoy the benefits of civilization. Remember it and be grateful to the past and to that vast army of toilers who offered up their all that you might, without effort, profit by the things it took their blood to procure. There is scarcely a comfort you have about you that has not cost myriad men labor, weariness, and perhaps life itself. Therefore value highly your heritage and treat the fruits of all hard work with respect; and whenever you can fit your own small stone into the structure, or advance any good thing that shall smooth the path of those who are to follow you, do it as your sacred duty to those who have so unselfishly builded for you."

There was a moment of silence and the rumble of the busy street rose to their ears.

"I never shall build anything that will help the men of the future,"

observed Stephen, in a low tone.

"Every human being is building all the time," replied his father. "He is building a strong body that shall mean a better race; a clean mind that shall mean a purer race; a loyalty to country that will result in finer citizens.h.i.+p; and a life of service to his fellows that will bring in time a broader Christianity. Will not the world be the better for all these things? It lies with us to carry forward the good and lessen the evil of the universe, or tear down the splendid ideals for which our fathers struggled and r.e.t.a.r.d the upward march of the universe. If everybody put his shoulder to the wheel and helped the forward spin of our old world, how quickly it would become a better place!"

As he concluded his remarks Mr. Tolman took out his watch.

"Well, well!" said he. "I had no idea it was so late. I must hurry or I shall not finish my story."

"As I told you the men from the east and those from the west worked toward each other from opposite ends of the country. As soon as short lengths of track were finished they were joined together. Near the great Salt Lake of Utah a tie of polished laurel wood banded with silver marked the successful crossing of Utah's territory. Five years later Nevada contributed some large silver spikes to join her length of track to the rest. California sent spikes of solid gold, symbolic both of her cooperation and her mineral wealth; Arizona one of gold, one of silver, and one of iron. Many other States offered significant tributes of similar nature. And when at last the great day came when all the short lines were connected in one whole, what a celebration there was from sea to sea! Wires had been laid so that the hammer that drove the last spike sent the news to cities all over the land. Bells rang, whistles blew, fire alarms sounded. The cost of the Union Pacific was about thirty-nine million dollars and that of the Central Pacific about one hundred and forty million dollars. The construction of the Southern Pacific presented a different set of problems from those of the Northern, but many of the difficulties encountered were the same. Bands of robbers and Indians beset the workmen and either cut the ties and spread the rails, or tore the track up altogether for long distances. Forest fires often overtook the men before they could escape, although trains sometimes contrived to get through the burning areas by drenching their roofs and were able to bring succor to those in peril. Then there were washouts and snowstorms quite as severe as any experienced in the northern country."

"I'm afraid I should have given the whole thing up!" interrupted Steve.

"Many another was of your mind," returned Mr. Tolman. "The frightful heat encountered when crossing the deserts was, as I have said, the greatest handicap. Frequently the work was at a standstill for months because all the metal--rails and tools--became too hot to handle. The difficulty of getting water to the men in order to keep them alive in this arid waste was in itself colossal. Tank cars were sent forward constantly on all the railroads, northern as well as southern, and the suffering experienced when such cars were for various reasons stalled was tremendous. The sand storms along the Southern Pacific route were yet another menace. So you see an eagerness for adventure had to be balanced by a corresponding measure of bravery. Those early days of railroad building were not all romance and picturesqueness."

Stephen nodded as his father rose and took up his hat and coat.

"I'd like to hear Mr. Ackerman tell of the early steamboating," remarked the lad. "I'll bet the story couldn't match the one you have just told."

"Perhaps not," his father replied. "Nevertheless the steams.h.i.+ps had their full share of exciting history and you must not be positive in your opinion until you have heard both tales. Now come along, son, if you are going with me, for I must be off."

Obediently Stephen slipped into his ulster and tagged at his father's heels along the corridor.

What a magic country he lived in! And how had it happened that it had been his luck to be born now rather than in the pioneer days when there were not only no railroads but no great hotels like this one, and no elevators?

"I suppose," observed Mr. Tolman, as they went along, "we can hardly estimate what the coming of these railroads meant to the country. All the isolated sections were now blended into one vast territory which brought the dwellers of each into a common brotherhood. It was no small matter to make a unit of a great republic like ours. The seafarer and the woodsman; easterner, westerner, northerner, and southerner exchanged visits and became more intelligently sympathetic. Rural districts were opened up and made possible for habitation. The products of the seacoast and the interior were interchanged. Crops could now be transported; material for clothing distributed; and coal, steel, and iron--on which our industries were dependent--carried wherever they were needed.

Commerce took a leap forward and with it national prosperity. From now on we were no longer hampered in our inventions or industries and forced to send to England for machinery. We could make our own engines, manufacture our own rails, coal our own boilers. Distance was diminished until it was no longer a barrier. Letters that it previously took days and even weeks to get came in hours, and the cost and time for freight transportation was revolutionized. In 1804, for example, it took four days to get a letter from New York to Boston; and even as late as 1817 it cost a hundred dollars to move a ton of freight from Buffalo to New York and took twenty days to do it. In every direction the railroads made for national advancement and a more solid United States. No soldiers, no statesmen of our land deserve greater honor as useful citizens than do these men who braved every danger to build across the country our trans-continental railways."

CHAPTER XII

NEW PROBLEMS

"I have been thinking, Dad," said Steve that evening, while they sat at dinner, "of the railroad story you told me this morning. It was some yarn." His father laughed over the top of his coffee cup.

"It was, wasn't it?" replied he. "And the half was not told then. I was in too much of a hurry to give you an idea of all the trials the poor railroad builders encountered. Did it occur to you, for example, that after the roads to the Pacific coast were laid their managers were confronted by another great difficulty,--the difference in time between the east and the west?"

"I never thought of that," was Steve's answer. "Of course the time must have differed a lot."

"Indeed it did! Every little branch road followed the time peculiar to its own section of the country, and the task of unifying this so that a basis for a common time-table could be adopted was tremendous. A convention of scientists from every section of the country was called to see what could be done about the fifty-three different times in use by the various railroads."

"Fifty-three!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Stephen, with a grin. "Why, that was almost as many as Heinz pickles."

"In this case the results of the fifty-three varieties were far more menacing, I am afraid, than those of the fifty-seven," said his father, with a smile, "for travel under such a regime was positively unsafe."

"I can see that it would be. What did they do?"

"Well, after every sort of suggestion had been presented it was decided to divide the country up into four immense parts, separated from one another by imaginary lines running north and south."

"Degrees of longitude?"