THE COUNTRY BOY 115 



it looked even finer than it had in my dreams. 

 Mr. Palmer didn't let on that he was glad until 

 we got out of sight of the Indian, then we had 

 a great reunion. This new engine only 

 burned about half as much wood as the other 

 old freight engine, so there wasn't much to do 

 but sit uj) in the seat and ring the bell at road 

 crossings and look at streaks of the finest 

 country in the whole world and watch the 

 grouse and china pheasants fly off of the 

 track. We got along fine and I kept No. 8 

 looking as good as the Indian had her. Our 

 only trouble was that so many boys knew me 

 in Silverton, that every time we went up the 

 mill switch after a box car of flour, as this was 

 a mixed train, these chums of mine used to 

 climb into the cab. Now there is a certain 

 dignity that engineers and even firemen have 

 that is spoiled if everybody comes piling into 

 the cab, especially if women come with small 

 brats, which they sometimes did. This worried 

 Mr. Palmer a lot and made me fairly ashamed. 

 The worst one to climb in was a friend of 

 mine named Jap Libby. We were about the 

 same age, only he had the most nerve, and the 

 mill switch was so rough we couldn't run fast 



