Young Folks’Corner.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1060, 23 June 1892, Page 18

Young Folks’Corner.

EDITED BY * UNCLE TOBY.’ LITTLE JOE BRYAN. By Mary A. P. Stansbury. A gr. at railway station may not be the best school for a boy, yet poor little Joe Bryan had scarcely known any other. At an age when an ordinary baby might have besn frightened inco convulsions by the Bkriek of a locomotive, Joe, securely fastened in his perambulator, would stare for hours through the great window, undisturbed by the incessant rush and roar of arriving and departing trains. The older yard men tell the story even yet —how young Michael Bryan, as straight and manly a fellow as ever left his green old native Island for the better chances of the new world this side the sea, came whistling ont of the round-house that morning and stepped hastily from before an inooming locomotive, neither seeing nor hearing another rushing up the parallel track. Nobody who saw it could ever forget the look of agony which distorted his handsome face In that one horrible instant, when he recognised his doom, or the perpendicular leap into the air, from which he fell back beneath the crunching wheels.

In the excitement and consternation of the time no messenger had been sent in advance to prepare the poor young wife for her trouble, and she stood in the doorway with her baby crowing in her arms, when the etout bearers paused a l '- her gate with their mangled burden.

She uttered a terrible cry and fell fainting —the child’s tender back strikiug the sharp edge of the doorstone, and the strong boy was by that one blow transformed into a pit.ful creature, which even death refused to take.

The officers of the railway company were kind to poor Mary Bryan. They paid the expenses of the funeral, and, after little Joe had slowly mended, employed her about the depot to scrub the floors aud keep the glass and woodwork bright and neat. When Joe was seven years old his mother sent him to school. He went patiently, day after day, making no complaint, and only by dint of long coaxing w»b she able to find out the cause of his grief. Some of the rougher boys had called him ‘ Humpy,’ and asked if he carried a bag of meal on his back.

Mary flamed with the fierce anger of motherhood.

1 You shan’t go another day 1 ’ she deo'ared. ‘ The ruffians ! I won’t have my darlin’ put upon by the likes of them 1 ’ So Joe’s schooling had come to an untimely end. Yet meagre as waa his stock of book-learning, the development of his mind far outstripped the growth of his stunted and deformed body. Everybody liked the patient little fellow, and at 12 years old be pioked up no small amount of information, especially on railroad topics. It was growing toward dark one November afternoon. Joe—never an unwelcome visitor—sat curled in a corner of the office of Mr Crump, the telegraph operator, waiting for his mother to finish her work. JBe waa laboriously spelling out, by the fading light, the words upon a page of an-illustrated, newspaper, quite oblivious of the ticking, like that of a very jerky and rheumatic clock, which sounded in the room. Mr Cramp suddenly sprang to his feet, repeating aloud the message whioh that moment flashed along the wire. * Engine No 110 running wild. Clear the track.’ He rushed to the door, shouting the news. ‘Not a second to spare 1 She’ll bo down in seven minutes 1 ’ The main track was barely cleared when 110 came in sight, swaying from side to side,

her wheels threatening to leave the traok at each revolution. She passed the depot like a meteor, the steam escaping from her whistle with a continuous shriek of demon, and the ocoupanta of a cab wrapped from view in a cloud of smoke. Some hundred yards beyond the depot the track took a sharp upward grade, from which it descended again to strike the bridge across a narrow but deep and rocky gorge. Men looked after the flying locomotive, and then at each other with blanohod faces. ‘They’re gone! A miracle oan’t save ’em,’ said one, voicing the wordleea terror of the rest. ‘lf they don’t fly the track on the up grade, ihey’il go down as soon as they strike the trestle.’ But look 1 Midway of tbe long rise the speed of the runaway engine suddenly slackens. Excitement winged their feet. When the foremost runners reached the place, the smoking engine stood still in her track, quivering in every steel-clad nerve, her great wheels still whizzir.g round and round amid a flight of rod sparks from beneath. * What did it ? What stopped her? ’ The engineer, stagvering from the cab, with the pallid face of tha fireman behind him, pointed without speaking to where a little pale faced, crooked-baeic boy had sunk down, panting with exertion, beside the track. At his feet a huge oil oan lay overturned and empty. The crowd stared, one at another, openmouthed. Then the truth flashed upon them. * Ha oiled the track 1 ’ ‘Bully for crooked Joe 1 ’ ‘Three cheers 1 Hurrah 1 hurrah ! hurrah ! ’

They caught up the exhausted child, flinging him from burly shoulder to shoulder, striving with each other for the honour of bearing him, aud so, in irregular, tumultu ous, triumphal procession they brought him back to the depot an 1 set him down among them.

The superintendent had come from his office. He laid his hand on the boys head. ‘Joe,’ he said, ‘we couldn’t pay you if we wished. Money doesn’t pay for lives ! But you saved ua a great many dollars besides. Won’t you let us do something for you?’ ‘ You can’t 1 you can’t 1 Nobody oan 1 ’ The child’s voice \va3 almost a shriek. ‘ There’s only one thing in the world I want, and nobody can give me that. Nobody can ever make me anything but ‘ Crooked Joe 1’ The superintendent lifted him and held him against his own breast. ‘ My boy, he said, in his firm, gentle tones, ‘you are right. None of us can do that for you. Buk you can do it for yourself. Listen te me. Where Is the quiak brain God gave you, and the brave heart ? Not in that bent back of yours—that has nothing to do with them. Let us help you to a chance—only a chance to work aud to learn—aud it will rest with you yourself t’o say whether in 20 years from now, if you are alivo, if you are * 1 Crooked Joe ” or “Mr Joseph Bryan 1” ’ Visiting in C not long ago a friend said to me : ‘Courtis in session. You must go with me and hear Bryan.’ When the brilliant young attorney rose to make his plea I noticed with a shock of surprise that his noble head surmounted an undersized and misshapen body. He had spoken but five minutes, however, when I had utterly forgotten the physical defect ; in 10, I was inter sted, and there-, after, during tbe iwo hours’ speech, held sped-bound by th-i marvellous eloquence which is fast raising him to the leadership of his profession in bis native city. ‘A wonderful man !’ said my friend, as we walked slowly homeward. Then he told ms the stoiy of ‘ Crooked Joe.’