ARDING had been away from the Jerkwater Division for a year, but he had managed at least once a month to get back to Divide. The old mother was there, and William was all she had left. No matter how difficult it was for William to “breast the blows of circumstance,” he never forgot or neglected his filial duties.
The women in the homes of railroad men, of men who run the trains, never know when they send their breadwinners forth whether they will ever come back. The little, gray lady at Divide had for years tried to shake off the forebodings that clustered about her husband, but she could not; and in the end his calling had taken him from her. That he had died a hero was something; yet that others should honor and revere his memory scarcely made her loss the less bitter.
Then her husband's brother had gone, and young William, at the same time had come near going. To the woman, it seemed as though fate had bound the Hardings to a life that must ultimately spell destruction to the very last of the line. She had begged William to give up the road, and she had been secretly pleased when the division superintendent had asked him to seek employment elsewhere.
After that, Mrs. Harding had followed her son's career of misfortune with a troubled soul. Her keen intuition told her that he would come back to the railroad again—that the same fate which had forced him away would force him to return. So she was not surprised when he came home in the midnight hour and announced that he was to wait there for Trawl to find a place for him on the division; she was not surprised, but her heart was heavy.
That night William slept in his old room under the gable; and peace, and comfort, and hope filled him, and a great thankfulness that he should have such a port to come to in the hour of his troubles, and such a loyal friend as his mother to give him welcome.
The sun was high before he opened his eyes, and when he dressed and went downstairs he found the breakfast waiting. Old blue china was on the table, and a savory smell of bacon came from a covered skillet, and an odor of coffee from the old coffeepot. Outside the kitchen window were the morning-glories, and in the rocking-chair was his mother, reading a morning paper, and patiently waiting for him to come in his own good time.
“I'm a lazy hunks, eh, mother?” he asked, putting his arm around her and kissing her withered cheek.
“You were up late, Willie,” she answered, “and I wanted you to have all the sleep you needed.”
Oh, yes, he might be Bill to some of the boys on the division, plain William to others, and Hardluck to a few more, but to his mother he had been Willie from the time he wore short trousers, and to her he would probably be Willie to the end of the chapter.
“Gee, but it's good to be home!” he murmured, as he took his place at the table.
While they ate he told her of his determination to master his misfortunes in the same place where they had first overtaken him, of how he had slipped up from Sweetbriar to Crook on a semicolon, so to speak, had secured a promise from Trawl, and had reached Divide on the Extra West. He did not tell her of the trouble on the extra—that was beside the matter, and would only have caused her worry—but he did mention what Trawl had said about growing a beard, going down to the Junction, and applying for work under a fictitious name.
“No!” cried Mrs. Harding sharply. “Does the superintendent think your own name is something to be ashamed of, Willie?”
He explained, as well as he could, Trawl's reason for making the suggestion.
“I can't think that the superintendent is right,” his mother went on, “and that your old friends will refuse to work with you because you are William Horace Harding. You will not do this with my consent, Willie. I don't believe in false names—they mean deceit—and if you are to win in your fight, I'm sure that is a bad way begin.”
“That's what I think, mother; but”
“Then,” she cut in eagerly, “don't do something which you know is not square and aboveboard. When you hear from Mr. Trawl, write him and tell him that you will take a place under your own name, or not at all.”
“That might set him against the whole scheme.”
“Then let it. Matters have come to a pretty pass, I think, if all the Hardings have done for this road has not earned you a chance in your own right. We'll get along, Willie, until matters change for you. It is a long lane, you know, that has no turning.”
“Mother,” he cried, “you're a brick! I'll fight it out on that line,” he added, with a boyish laugh, “if it takes all summer.”
She smiled at him bravely and sympathetically.