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Edgar: The 7:58
by Phil Stong
Chapter 1
Edgar Takes Over
"I'm tired of this," Edgar said suddenly.
"Hey?" the front-end brakeman -- more usually called the front-end snake -- inquired.
When a train, like Edgar, switches from one track to another, the front-end, or junior, snake runs out in front from the engine cab and pulls the switch. The senior snake lolls off the bench in the caboose at the other end of the train and yells at the junior snake -- who knows quite well that Senior S. won't take the trouble to throw the switch back, and waits to do it himself -- "Hurry up, we can't stand here all day."
This is after the train has crossed the switch and the joint of rails must be turned back so that some other train, planning to go to San Francisco, say, won't find itself in Mexico City or a ditch. Then the junior snake runs as hard as he can back to the engine and sits on a high bench at the left side to tell the hoghead when he has hit a cow. The hoghead is the engineer, of course.
The hoghead sits on a bench at the right and pulls contraptions to make the train start or slow or hurry or stop or whistle or go "PFFFIIIiiissst" from underneath; or he looks at gauges and says, "Shovel her up, Poohface," meaning that the hothead, the fireman, should put more coal in the fire under the boiler.
It takes at least five men to run a train: the hoghead, the hothead, the front snake, the back snake and the conductor -- the fathead, or swellhead. On big trains there are a lot of other people, but they aren't important enough to have titles.
"I said I was tired of it," Edgar added.
The hoghead wiped off one of Edgar's gauges with his sleeve. "You stay quiet."
"I won't stay quiet. I can make Pittsville at 7:58, on time, and I'm going to do it. Tell Front Snake to get on and quit talking to the hamburger fellow."
"We can't make Pittsville by 7:58," the fathead, the conductor, who had come up at this moment, said severely. "We have to wait here or we'll be on time. Nobody will be expecting us for half an hour or better. And what do you mean, talking? I've got your specifications, guaranteed by the manufacturer, and you're supposed to be quiet."
"I am quiet," Edgar said, "but I've stood enough of this. I'm supposed to be the 7:58 and I'm going to be. How can I make a name for myself when I keep being the 8:20 and the 9:01 and the 10:26? I'm going to get in on time so people will remember me -- the 7:58. I'm going to do it right along. I've got a right."
"Of course, you've got a right," the fathead, or swellhead, said soothingly, "but it's a right of way. Listen. When this country was made out and they invented railroad trains, our railroad company got from the country a track with a little room on each side to run around with trains. That's the right of way. That's the only right I ever knew a train to have."
"Don't you ever change your mind?" Edgar asked offensively. "Don't you ever learn anything new? All you do when I'm pulling my gizzard out to get this train around is argue, argue, argue; chaw, chaw, chaw, all the time. I'm working to get places and all you do is sit and wait for me to get them, except when you stop me with your fool brakes so you can argue some more. And where do you get -- ?"
"From Keokuk to Des Moines," the junior brakeman said timidly.
"Yaah! I'm talking about this terrible arguing about everything. You never get anywhere. You've got your minds set all the time. Don't you ever figure anybody else might have an idea that was better than yours?"
"I should say not. If you want to do that you better go to Rooshia or something. Also," the fathead said, "I think it's peculiar about you starting to talk all of a sudden. Never heard of a railroad train doing it before."
"You see," Edgar said; "just what I mentioned. You don't adjust. You don't keep your mind up with things that, happen. Rooshia -- no, we won't go there just now. But I'm going on and meet my engagement. Tell the boys."
The fathead laughed out loud and said, "You won't get far until the engineer starts you."
"Oh, yes," Edgar said. "That's the easiest of all. I can do that in a minute. All I do is turn back that brass handle."
"You'll run square into the down freight -- you can't do it!"
"No," Edgar said gently. "You see, I make my own track -- I can go up or down or sideways. You've seen spiders, haven't you? And from now on I'm going to be in Pittsville at 7:58 sharp. Then I want to get out and around."
"Go ahead," the fathead said. "Go on. Be stubborn and jim up everything."
Edgar said, "You have to let off the brakes."
The conductor thought that the engineer would probably be mad, but he let off the air pressure on the brakes. He wanted to show Edgar.
Rails spun out from Edgar in front and drew up back from behind, like a caterpillar tractor. They were good rails, made carefully, and Edgar rolled along them without a bump. He turned around, went up in the air a few feet, came down smoothly and settled on the old track.
"What do you know about that?" the hoghead inquired.
"You see," Edgar explained modestly, "all the track behind a train isn't any use. And the rails in front aren't any good till you get to them. Really, all you need is just an inch or so towards where you're going."
"That's true," the hoghead said.
"Then if you leave out the rails behind that you've already been on and don't want any more and don't think of the rails in front that you haven't come to yet, it doesn't take very much to do the rails under you just that minute. By will power."
"A good idea."
"The thing is," Edgar said seriously, "that if I'm the 7:58 I want to be the 7:58. You and Front End and Back End and Fathead ought to be aboard or somebody might say something. But the 7:58 has to be in at 7:58." "What about the hothead?"
"Oh -- oh -- I forgot. Where's my supper?"
"We'd better go back," the hoghead said. "You know we don't take coal till we get to Eldon."
"A little kindling," Edgar suggested. "A sandwich?"
"So you can bite the hand that feeds you."
"I don't like the way he shovels my coal, anyhow."
"I can tell you," the engineer said, "he doesn't like to shovel your coal. It's six of this and half a dozen of the other. Now will you behave and come along?"
"I'll come along this time," Edgar said, "but we'll see."
