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frontier Ballads
Slowly he passed his engine by Scanning its length with a practiced eye, Touching a polished slide-valve here. Or there, a shaft of the running-gear, Which done, he turned in a boyish mood To a group of children who, gaping, stood At the side of the track, too wonder-bound To move a limb or to make a sound. Into their midst Garcia sprung And a chubby lad to his shoulder swung, Who, laughing, clutched at his corded neck Like a sailor tossed on a rocking deck.
Perhaps to the Mexican engineer
The child suggested a vision dear
Of a little boy of his very own
In a white-washed cottage at Torreon,
And the dark-eyed mother who, day by day.
Told beads for her husband, far away.
And watched, as the trains steamed forth and back,
For his mogul engine along the track.
But only a moment, with swinging feet, The baby perched on his lofty seat, For suddenly down by the cars in rear There rang a shriek of unbridled fear. Garcia turned, in amaze looked back; A score of men from the railroad track Were rushing away in a frantic race As if they had looked on a demon's face, And then, as he turned, the cause was plain For half-way back in the standing train A flame licked out from a box-car's side, Yellow and spiteful, a handbreadth wide.
His cheek grew pale, but his lips still smiled
As he slipped from his shoulder the startled child,
Nor even forgot in his haste to place
A good-bye kiss on the upturned face;
Then he sprang to the street with a bound and gazed |
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