Evening Star Newspaper, November 29, 1931, Page 90

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, A Romance of the Road, in Which Father and Son Be- .come Rivals for the Favors of a Fair Widow. the Missouri division there housands of versions of the of Big Dan and Little Dan; a on for each stormy night of the yvear when yardmen and enginemen find sh-lier from the eclements in some switch shanty. The Getails ar: never the same, bui the gz2in idca i iably runs clear and strong a sitory of a raiiroad engincer's love for his son. a love which had its kteginning 25 years wh'n Big Dan Moberly found himeself a widower with an in- fant =on on his is. It is a sicry cf how Big Dan reared that baby with no help werthy of mention and shapzd a boy's life to follow in his own foot- steps, and if th2 narrator happens to be an old- timer, he will trace the child's development through thosc early years when Big Dan oc- cupizd the dual role of father and mother to Little Dan. He will build up a pretty picture of the en- gineer telling the child badtime stories, stories having to do with the railroad, the engines and the men who manned those wonderful iron horses. Little Dan demanded a hero for each story, and that hero could be none other than Big Dan himself. If Big Dan realized whither his story-telling was leading his son his conscience did not re- proach him. For next to his motherless son his faster passion was for his engine and his run on the mail. And he could think of no occu- paiion for his son mcre to his liking than to have to climb the iron ladder of an engine cab. SUALLY the switch shanty version of the story would dispose of a dozen years in as many words. The narrator would tell of Little Dan's first job in the roundhouse, and would hurry along to the time he at Jast be-ame fireman for Big Dan. Alvways at this point the switch shanty crew wculd s2nse that the vital part of the story had been reached. Often the story tellers disagreed in the mat- ter of just when it started, but always they were of ene mind regarding the cause. A woman. A woman came between a man who had forgotten thz existence of women and a 1ad who bad crizd himself to sleep a hundred timos for want of a mother to comfort him. The accepted version of the story told of a y night when father and son were headed 1 the home terminal at the head end of s bound express train. Little Dan hung up his coal scoop and shouted: “Looks like we're goin' to make it on time, dad.” “Yep, u kept her at th’' poppin’ point all th = ” Big Dan called; “we’ll make ii.” 11 be good to get home,” Little Dan a i Bir Dun made no reply to that remark, be- cauce it had suddenly come to him that Little PDan had really never had a home; that is to sav. 2 home like other boys had had. Th~ place they were headed for at that moment was not a home. There would be peither light nor warmth when they opened ittle Dan found the note, read it aloud stumbling words . . . Emma was go- ing back home to Ohio. e > . P. €, NOVEMBER 29, 1391. By Leo F. Creagan Illustrated by ART KRENZ the door; no odor of cooking food, no wife or mother to welcome them. Instead, the house would be dark and cold. And they would stum- ble about in the awkward fashion of two hun- gry men, to turn on lights, build fires, cook and serve coarse food, food without the flavor or the warmth which only a woman could lend to it. That was the night when Big Dan voiced his dissatisfaction to Little Dan; made it a kind of indictment of himself, made it appear that he realized for the first time how badly Little Dan had been cheated in the matter of a home. But Little Dan attempted to make light of the matter. “Oh, I wouldn't feel that way about it, Dad,” he said. “Maybe I don’'t miss the thing I've never had.” “But that's it, Son,” Big Dan muttered. “You don’t know what you've missed, an’ it's my fault that something’s been left out of your life.” “Well, couldn't we get us a housekeeper?” Little Dan said. “We make good money. May- be we could find a good woman——"' “Who could we get to come an’ live here, Son?” Big Dan asked. “We'd want somebody nice an'—" “How about Red Durbin’s widow?” Little Dan interrupted, “Remember, Red Durbin who was killed two or three years ago down on Moselle fiats? Seems to me I heard some of the boys sayin’ she worked around at different places.” MMA DURBIN came to Big and Little Dan’s home as housekeeper, and after that, home- coming on a stormy night was much different from what it had been before her coming. There were bright lights and warmth and appe- tizing food and the pretty face of Emma Dur- bin to greet the engine crew when they stamped in at the end of a run. The arrangement was a happy one for a time, until Big Dan commenced to notice a growing interest between the ysung widow and Little Dan, and it caused him to mutter to himself. He tried to convince himself that what he saw did not mean what he thought it meant, because Emma was 10 years older than Little Dan, even if she did appear to be in her early twenties. But he couldn’t mistake the eager- ness with which Little Dan slid from the gang- way at the end of each westbound trip. Little Dan commenced to notice things about the same time; signs which indicated to him that a sincere attraction between his father and Emma had come into being, signs which disturbed and embarrassed him in their pres- ence. Then the thing happened, a turn of affairs which brought the relationship between the men to a critical stage. It was a night of snow and wind when the westbound express called for the signal at the home terminal. Big and Little Dan slid from the gangway and hurried toward the locker room, where, stripped of overclothes, they scrub- bed their faces in steaming water. The two men covered the distance to their home without a word, to find the house dark and empty. Little Dan found the note, read it aloud in stumbling words. The note said that Emma was going back home to Ohio, was leaving on No. 4. Little Dan looked into his father’s tired old eyes and saw a misery there which he had never seen before. And Big Dan, gazing word- lessly at his son, saw a look of hurt which recalled those nights long ago when a mother- less lad had sobbed for no reason that he could explain. For a long time the men stared at each other. Then the telephone sounded through the cold house. “I'll get it,” Little Dan said huskily. Big Dan stood holding the letter in a trembling hand while the younger man lifted the tele- phone receiver and listened. For a moment there was silence, then: “Wait a minute. I'll ask dad,” Little Dan said. He turned to face his father, and seemed to notice for the first time that Big Dan was getting old. “They want us to double back to St. Louis on No. 8,” he said. “Gordon and his fireman didn’t get in from the east yet.” “Sure. When'll Eight be here?” Big Dan questioned. - Gl “Thirty minutes,” Little Dan answered. “Come on, le’s go,” Big Dan shouted. “No. 4 has been gone only an hour. Maybe we can overtake ’em, an’ bring——" “Emma, you mean?” Little Dan questi&ned. “Sure, if we can pass Four before they get to 8t. Louis, we——" “Can meet her when she changes trains— bring her back?” Little Dan finished. THEY will tell you around the sand house and the switch shanty about the run of No. 8 that night; point to that trip as a mark hung up by a pair of fools, for engineers to beat if they can. Big Dan and Little Dan plodded through the storm, reaching the station just as the mail came to a stop. From pilot beam to rear mark- ers the train was wrapped in snow and ice, with its bell giving off that muffled sound peculiar to bells in falling snow. Little Dan measured the water in the tender with a broom handle and loaded the fire with coal. Big Dan poked a flaming torch and a long-snouted oil can about among the rods of the great Pacific type locomotive; then they were gore, three hours late on No. 8's schedule. “How's the fire?” Big Dan called into the noise. “0. K., you can widen on 'er any time,” Little Dan said. . Big Dan slid the cab window open, for the Continued on Seventeenth Page Little Dan demanded a hero for each story, and that hero could be none oth- er than big Dan himself.