Stadium High School - Tahoma Yearbook (Tacoma, WA)

Page 11 text:

THE. TAHOMA 9 1 4' 1V iierarg I l i A ivy ag s ' BETH CLAY Literary Editor The Music of the Spheres Arvid Dahlgren, 'I 3 If you should happen down to the roundhouse some night at, say, about 8 o'clock, an hour or so before engine No. 3024 pulling the Northern Limited shrieks into Fleetwood, where it is relieved by No. 3026, you may, if you are lucky, hear a story called The Race, that thing or accident which the news- paper men so aptly labeled The Mystery of the Overturned Locomotive. And as you listen to the driver of 3026, Michael Macline, who sits perched up on the deck of his big prairie Hyer, a misty shadow in the soft gloom of the roundhouse, whose darknesses are intensified by the soft burr of the oil burners and the song of the safety valves, a strange admiration wells up within you for the rail demons who make it a business to urge on their engines to speed ever greater, and, having attained it, are not satisfied but must needs make more. Flynn Burman entered the roundhouse as a sweeper, performer of endless menial tasks. Shortly after he was promoted to wiper: eventually he became a fireman, going over to the right hand side of the cab a few months later as the result of a sudden increase in traffic. A disastrous passenger wreck in which both engineers with their firemen were killed gave him control of the Northern Limited, the North-North Railroad Company's crack flyer, a position he main- tained until-well until his race was run.

Page 10 text:

MISS LOLA I. PERKINS Oral Expression Teacher Photo by Harlsook Studio

Page 12 text:

I0 THE TAI-IOMA As a fireman he was a splendid success, as an engineer he was even better. He was never late, never early, always there to the dot. His friends were few, that is, intimates. Of course every man on the line liked him, in a way, but none of them ever succeeded in getting beyond his impenetrable reserve. Ques- tions he answered in a manner almost curt, save when they had to do with the great machine he drove. Once they started him to talking of a locomotive, no one could stop him. He lived for his engine, he loved it. He was forever playing with it, adjusting it. Its brasses shone like the burnished sun, piston rods and connecting rods, all bright steel, flashed like streamers of light from a silvered moon. The master mechanic knew that Burman's engine was the finest on the section, that is why he arranged the North-South Coast race as he did. After Hxing up everything he suddenly remembered that he had not spoken to Burman about it. That worried him constantly up to the time he told the engineer, and even after. Burman was crawling out from between the great drivers when the master mechanic came up. Burman, I want you to run a race. USO? Quite a non-committal reply, peculiarly laden with challenge, nevertheless. We've arranged it so that the North-Limited will run to Smyrna in an attempt to get there before the South-Coast Limited reaches Fir Crossing. You've got to go five miles further: in addition you have to pull the president's car, but you can do it if you want to, Burman. This isn't official, of course, it's discountenanced by the company's rules, but everybody up to the old men on both sides have decided to find out who's best. They'll be having a daredevil driver, and they say the finest engine in America. Burman scowled. His was the finest engine, and he told the Master Me- chanic so. Did you say 'attempt' to beat them? he leered. The Master Mechanic grinned foolishly. No, just beat 'em, and do it good and hard, he explained. As the engine clicked through the frogs that night, every one of the more traveled people aboard experienced a new, hitherto unknown feeling. Something drew them irresistibly back into their seats and held them there. A few miles out a new quality came into the tearing train. It was a sensation much like flying, with only the horrible dizzying curves to bring one back to earth. After an eternity of terror, the passengers realized that the train stood still. The time card told of a five minute stop at Smyrna. By consulting their watches, they learned that they had not five but twenty minutes to stay there. The Master Mechanic figured it out later, finding to his vast consternation ethat Burman had averaged one hundred miles an hour. Possibly you are skeptical: if you are, ask Macline.