A WONDERFUL RAILROAD.
Reading edition
BY F. E. FRYATT.
"Oh, children, I have made such a wonderful discovery this afternoon on my shopping tour!" said Miss Thornton, laying off her bonnet and seal-skin, as she addressed an eager group of youngsters.
"What is it? what is it?—do tell us!" chorussed all the little Thorntons, gathering excitedly around her.
"Yes—wait a moment. Here, Nell, take my things up stairs; Harry, shoulder these packages, and go with her, and Bert will stir up the fire, while Edith runs down stairs and tells Bridget to serve dinner precisely at seven. Then we'll have my travels' history."
A little later, as they all sat before the blazing grate, with the red fire-light flickering on their faces, Miss Thornton commenced in a serious manner: "Once upon a time, just about a year ago, a benevolent gentleman was walking through one of the busiest thoroughfares in our city. It was Christmas-eve, and very late, when he saw twenty or thirty little girls and boys hurrying out of a great shop famous for its Christmas toys and gift counters of every description. The poor young things looked so pale and thin, and there was such a haggard expression on their small faces, that a strange pain filled his heart, and a longing to help these little cash boys and girls set him to thinking.
"The gentleman had two wee darlings of his own; he knew they were at this very moment tucked away, rosy and warm, in their snowy bed in the nursery, and he wished these tired young folks were as happily placed.
"'Shameful!' said he to himself; 'every one of you ought to have been in bed four hours ago. Something ought to be done—something shall be!'
"Just by the merest chance I went into that very store this afternoon, and what do you think I saw? The tiniest, prettiest little railroad you could imagine."
"A toy railroad?" queried Bert.
"Not at all; a veritable railroad running all around the store, filled with freight, passengers, and—money."
"Oh, aunty, 'upon your word and honor,' honest, now, was it a real true railroad with cars on it?" cried Harry.
"Yes, it is a real, wide-awake, lively, business, working road, as true as I sit here."
"Oh!" chorussed all the little Thorntons, in amazement.
"What made it go?" asked Harry.
"Who were the passengers?" chimed in Nellie.
"Could I ride on it, aunty?" asked Bert.
"Anyway, I should think it would run over folks, or trip them up," suggested Edith.
"Come, now, if you will give me 'elbow room,' and not crowd so, I'll tell you everything I saw, and explain it as clearly as possible," said Miss Thornton, smiling at the children's eager curiosity. "One day last year I went to that same store to purchase a bonnet; the place was thronged with customers at every counter; the floor-walkers were shouting, the girl clerks screaming 'C-a-a-sh!' 'Che-ck!' cash-girls and cash-boys with little baskets were running in every direction, calling out their numbers in reply. Such a jostling, crowding, noisy place I was never in."
"Well?" said Harry, with an air of deep interest.
"To-day I was very pleasantly surprised to find it as quiet and orderly as one could wish; just as many customers, to be sure, but none of the dreadful noise and confusion of last year—and all owing to this wonderful little railroad."
"Do tell us all about it, aunty," begged Harry, forgetting he was interrupting.
"Well, I heard a soft humming noise somewhere overhead, and looking up, there were a dozen or more little cars with polished wheels running on tracks that shone like silver. Each car was about eight inches long, just big enough for a couple of fairies to ride in. They were the cutest little things, and ran along their shining roads like magic; no horses, pulleys, nor wires to draw them. Some of them went right to the dépôt without stopping; others stopped at their stations just as the big 'elevated' cars do."
"I've guessed it: they went by steam," shouted Bert, triumphantly.
"No, not by steam," said Aunt Elinor.
"Then they're wound up like my mouse clock," cried Harry.
"No, it isn't that."
"I mean to go there and find out," said Bert.
"Some of these cars had curious wire cages hanging beneath them. A dozen of these were running along at full speed to their stations. I ought to tell you just here that the odd little 'cubby-house' where the cashier receives and changes money is the place where these cars take on and deposit their passengers and freight. The double track commences at the north, and sweeps around the store till it comes to the south end of the box which serves as the dépôt. This railway, made of bright steel, is just high enough from the floor to let a tall man pass under without knocking his hat off. These little cages reminded me of the car of a balloon, they swung along so airily. But what do you think? There was an ugly black bear in one of them. He looked ferocious enough to eat one, and his eyes fairly glittered as he rode past me. In the next car was a solemn baby-elephant, with immense ears, funny twinkling little eyes, and a very respectable trunk. Then came a pair of jumping-jacks, a savings-bank, two monkeys, a woolly dog, and some lop-eared rabbits, and these were followed by a company of wooden soldiers, some more elephants, two gray cats, and a sedate-looking parrot. The animals kept coming, till I made up my mind to find out the Noah's ark where they were coming from. I hadn't far to go before I found myself in one of the toy departments, in the midst of which stood a great fat jolly old Santa Claus loaded down with Christmas toys, and all powdered with snow. 'Oho!' thought I, 'my merry old saint, I've found you out: you're the president of this new railroad.' He must have read my thoughts, or else I fancied he gave me a knowing wink out of one of his blue eyes, as much as to say, 'Don't tell the children.'"
"Oh, Aunt Elinor, but you have told us already," screamed Nell, with delight.
"Well, well, after watching another menagerie embark on the railroad, I followed the crowd into the next department. Oh, Nell, you and Edith would have clapped hands for joy: it was like a glimpse into fairy-land—dolls here, dolls there, dolls everywhere. As for the railroad, it was crowded, up-trains and down-trains."
"Oh, aunty, tell us how they were dressed!" cried Edith.
"One was a bride. I begged the clerk to stop the little car, and let me have a good look at her ladyship. She wore a lovely princesse robe of cream-colored satin, trimmed with lace and pearl-bead fringe; an exquisite veil and a wreath of orange blossoms covered her golden curls. In another car sat a very pretty little lady, with a real seal-skin hat, cloak, and muff, and diamond earrings; her cheeks were as red as roses. A baby doll in a long white dress sat in front of her."
"Oh, aunty, a baby doll, without any hair on its head, and only two teeth like Min's?"
"Yes, Nell; and, by-the-way, it didn't look unlike our Min: the same little round eyes and pudgy nose—yes, and the two teeth exactly like hers."
"All this time, Aunt Elinor, you haven't told us what made the cars go, and what stops them," said Edith, thoughtfully.
"What a forgetful aunty I am! This is the way it is done. Harry Thornton wants to buy a dog; he has a fifty-cent piece; he stops at a toy counter over which is marked Station D, and selects a nice black-and-tan—"
"No, a Newfoundland, aunty."
"Well, a Newfoundland. He hands fifty cents to the young woman clerk. What does she do? She takes the car down off the track, using a long-handled contrivance like a fork to do it. She places Mr. Doggy—Carlo, if you please—in the lower wire cage, the money and her cash-book in the top car; then places the car and its baggage on the down-town track, and away it rushes. You see, one end of the track is higher than the other, making a gentle descent, down which the little car glides. A young lad hands Mr. Carlo over to the wrapping clerk, and in a second or two, all wrapped from top to toe in tissue-paper, he makes his appearance in car D, bound on the up-town track for Station D. He makes the trip in ten seconds."
"But what makes him stop just at Station D?" inquires Harry.
"A small steel peg under the car, called a brake, is fixed just where it will fit in a notch on the steel road, and every station car is provided with one."
"I know it now," exclaimed Edith. "It was the benevolent gentleman who said in the beginning of your story that the cash boys and girls ought to have been in bed hours ago. He was the one who invented it—the railroad, I mean. Who was he, aunty?"
"I am sorry I can not tell you his name; but he is a very bashful person," replied Aunt Elinor.
"I'll tell you who it is," shouted Harry, with an air of triumph: "it's old Santa Claus. Hurrah for old Santa Claus!"
"Some one's Santa Claus, undoubtedly, little man; but whose?—that is the question."