t,
Watching and waiting, no serenade,
Love song, or midnight roundelay
Said what that whistle seemed to say:
"To my trust true,
So love to you!
Working or wailing, good night!" it said.

Brisk young bagmen, tourists fine,
Old commuters along the line,
Brakemen and porters glanced ahead,
Smiled as the signal, sharp, intense,
Pierced through the shadows of Providence:
"Nothing amiss--
Nothing!--it is
Only Guild calling his wife," they said.

Summer and winter the old refrain
Rang o'er the billows of ripening grain,
Pierced through the budding boughs o'erhead:
Flew down the track when the red leaves burned
Like living coals from the engine spurned;
Sang as it flew:
"To our trust true,
First of all, duty. Good night!" it said.

And then one night it was heard no more
From Stonington over Rhode Island shore,
And the folk in Providence smiled and said,
As they turned in their beds, "The engineer
Has once forgotten his midnight cheer."
_One_ only knew,
To his trust true,
Guild lay under his engine dead.

BILL MASON'S BRIDE.

BY BRET HARTE.

Half an hour till train time, sir,
An' a fearful dark time, too;
Take a look at the switch lights, Tom,
Fetch in a stick when you're through.
_On time?_ Well, yes, I guess so--
Left the last station all right;
She'll come round the curve a-flyin';
Bill Mason comes up to-night.

You know Bill? _No?_ He's engineer,
Been on the road all his life--
I'll never forget the mornin'
He married his chuck of a wife.
'Twas the summer the mill hands struck,
Just off work, every one;
They kicked up a row in the village
And killed old Donevan's son.

Bill hadn't been married mor'n an hour,
Up comes a message from Kress,
Orderin' Bill to go up there
And bring down the night express.
He left his gal in a hurry,
And went up on Number One,
Thinking