Golden Days for Boys and Girls | Page 7

other was trying to turn the wheel.
"I'm going to start the engine. Didn't you hear the whistle? What are
you waiting for?" snapped Croly.
"That was the quarter-whistle; it isn't time to start up yet. And if it was,
you would blow out a couple of cylinder-heads for me by letting on the
steam in that style!"
Larry's face was pale, partly because he thought that the other would
have succeeded in doing the mischief in spite of him. But the
determined face of the boy, coupled with his words, made Croly pause,
although he still allowed his hand to rest on the valve-gear of the great
engine.
"You think I don't know enough to start this machine, I suppose," he
said.
"I think if you did know, you wouldn't try to blow out the
cylinder-heads to start with," Larry rejoined.

"You're trying to bluff me now, but you ain't quite old enough to do it.
Just wait till the five-minute whistle blows, and see if I can't start the
machine. I know enough to know that if you let the steam into the
cylinder, she's got to start."
"Something would start, that's certain," said Larry, drily. "But," he
continued, "I don't think you will let the steam on this time. Now, let
go!"
"You're a pretty heavy man to put in as boss of this plant," replied
Steve.
He let go of the valve-wheel, but did not step back. Larry divined that
the fellow intended to wait until he was momentarily away from the
gear, and then persist in his attempt to start the engine.
"I told you to go out," he said, pointing at the door.
"I'm going after the engine is started, and not before," persisted Croly.
"You know you have no right in this part of the works. They wouldn't
have me loafing in your department, and you must keep out of this!"
"I don't try to send anybody away from my department."
"You would if you had charge of it. In yours there is a foreman and
fifty or sixty men; in this there is only the fireman, under the engineer,
but the engineer is just as much a foreman as the boss of your
department is there."
"You're a boy," sneered Croly, "and when the Tioga Iron Works has
boys put in as bosses, they'll have to turn off the men and run the whole
business with boys. That's all there is to it."
"Would you come here if my father was in charge?"
"It isn't likely I should."
"Then you admit that you have no right here?"

Croly was silent. It was plain enough to Larry what the matter was with
the young man. The truth was he had at some time been temporarily in
charge of a small portable or "donkey" engine, such as are used for
hoisting purposes in stone quarries and in other out-of-door work, and
he was incapable of recognizing the difference between the simple
construction of such a machine and the complicated work in the great
motive-power of the Tioga Iron Works.
Larry was a slow-spoken boy, and correspondingly slow in making a
decision. But when his mind was really made up, he was equally slow
to change it.
He looked at the clock, and then at his own watch. In one minute the
next whistle would blow, and then the engine must be started.
The door leading to the boiler-room had been left open by Croly, and it
had glass panels, through which Joe Cuttle could be seen hard at work,
feeding the hungry furnaces.
Larry dared not wait another moment. He stepped quickly to the door
and called out:
"Joe, come here a moment!"
"Yes, my lad."
The furnace door closed with a clang. The fireman paused to pull at an
iron rod that was suspended against the wall, and the short, quick roar
of the five-minute whistle sounded.
Larry had wheeled about the instant he saw Joe start in obedience to his
call, and he was in time to see Croly again in the act of seizing the
valve-gear.
Without an instant's hesitation, he took hold of the wheel, and held it
firmly, at the same time calling:
"Quick, Joe!"

The big fireman appeared, and his single eye looked from the face of
the boy to that of Croly.
"Did'st thee want me, lad?" he asked, in his gruff tones.
"I want you to take this fellow away from the engine before we're all
blown out of the building to pay for his carelessness," Larry answered.
Cuttle's one eye glared upon Steve Croly, and the latter retreated, with a
look of grim defiance.
"He's away from the engine, lad," said Joe; "and, noo, what else
would'st have me do wi' him? A'll frowd him oot, if thou'd