The Project Gutenberg EBook of Forty Minutes Late, by F. Hopkinson Smith

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Title: Forty Minutes Late
1909

Author: F. Hopkinson Smith

Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23697]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTY MINUTES LATE ***

Produced by David Widger

FORTY MINUTES LATE

By F. Hopkinson Smith

1909

It began to snow half an hour after the train started--a fine-grained,
slanting, determined snow that forced its way between the bellows of the
vestibules, and deposited itself in mounds of powdered salt all over the
platforms and steps. Even the porter had caught some puffs on his
depot coat with the red cape, and so had the conductor, from the way he
thrashed his cap on the back of the seat in front of mine. "Yes,
gettin' worse," he said in answer to an inquiring lift of my eyebrows.
"Everything will be balled up if this keeps on."

"Shall we make the connection at Bondville?" I was to lecture fifty
miles from Bondville Junction, and had but half an hour lee-way.

If the man with the punch heard, he made no answer. The least said
the soonest mended in crises like this. If we arrived on time every
passenger would grab his bag and bolt out without thanking him or the
road, or the engineer who took the full blast of the storm on his chest
and cheeks. If we missed the connection, any former hopeful word would
only add another hot coal to everybody's anger.

I fell back on the porter.

"Yes' sir, she'll be layin' jes' 'cross de platform. She knows we're
comin'. Sometimes she waits ten minutes--sometimes she don't; more times
I seen her pullin' out while we was pullin' in."

Not very reassuring this. Only one statement was of value--the position
of the connecting train when we rolled into Bondville.

I formulated a plan: The porter would take one bag, I the other--we
would both stand on the lower step of the Pullman, then make a dash. If
she was pulling out as we pulled in, a goatlike spring on my part might
succeed; the bags being hurled after me to speed the animal's motion.

One hour later we took up our position.

"Dat's good!--Dar she is jes' movin' out: th