Stadium High School - Tahoma Yearbook (Tacoma, WA)

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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.

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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.

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THE TAHOMA ll You done fine, cried the Master Mechanic to Burman two days later. Thank you, returned the driver, but just wait until I run my race,my race! he added. That was all, but it set several tongues wagging. That is all some tongues are meant for--wagging. A For weeks nothing unusual happened. Then one night as they sat in the roundhouso together--wipers, firemen, and a few engineers-some wires, strung high up in the' building for a purpose long since forgotten, began a weird, un- earthly, yet altogether melodious song, sounding as if it had come through a vast void of clarifying space. That, said a young man to whom a delightful recreation made itself apparent in ancient history, that sounds like the Music of the Spheres, if ever such a thing could be. Sonic one asked him curiously what he meant. The Egyptians had a notion that the planets in their flight produced a music too fine for the mortal ear to hear. They imagined that the melody was meant for the gods alone. And this pretty conceit, finished up the dispenser of history, with a flourish, they called the Music of the Spheres. Don't sound pretty to me a bit, growled an old engineer. The last time them wires sang that way Crifhth was killed, and on the same night. Yeah, and on the time before that 'twas the Long Curve wreck. d'you 'member? whined Gilson. They say, whenever those wires gets a-singin' like they is now, that the next engine out'll be wrecked. Some gazed apprehensively at Burman, who still monkeyed with his engine. ' ' Hear that, Flynn? chuckled Macline, who at that time fired for Bur- man. Maybe we'll fly the coop tonight. Yes, I heard, and maybe I willg but you won't, he twitted the fireman. Hear 'im, would you! He, why he's agoin' to rescue me! cackled Macline. Mac was the only one who dared take liberties with Burman. Nevertheless, Burman felt decidedly uneasy, despite his attempt at jocu- larity. Why, he did not exactly know. Something was wrong somewhere. Whether it was in his mind or whether it was the engine he was unable to de- cide. Yet it must be the engine. He sensed, seemingly in every nerve. So long and so carefully had he cared for his machine that he seemed more a part of it than anything else. And he could not decide where the trouble lay. The safety valve sobbed, choking as if trying to tell him something that he could not see. Even the water in the glasses rose and fell apprehensively. It was weird, uncanny. When the limited came in thirty minutes late it added to the high tension in the roundhouse.