car-roof. His jump fell short. The
father saw his son's head go down, and for an awful minute Henry Sears
heard the lumbering train rumble by. In the first second of that
minute, the frantic man listened for a scream. He heard none. Then
slowly he sank upon a baggage truck. He was helpless. A paralysis of
horror was upon him. Car after car jolted along. At last the yellow
caboose flashed by him. Half of the longest second Henry Sears ever
knew passed before he dared turn his eyes toward the place on the
track where his son went down. Then he looked, and saw only the cinder
track and the shining rails. But an instant later he heard a familiar
whoop, and, staring around, saw Jimmy sitting on a load of wheat that
was standing between the railroad tracks. In this the boy had fallen
after his sidewise jump had thrown him from the moving train. When
Henry Sears saw his son, Jimmy was holding his foot, jiggling it
vigorously and roaring, moved half by the hysteria of fright and half
by the pain of a fresh laceration of his bruised toe. The boy's face
was black with coal-dust and wheat chaff, and tears were striping his
features grotesquely. The palsy of terror loosened its steel bands
from the father's limbs, and he ran to the wheat-wagon. Jimmy Sears,
for all he or his father know, may have floated to the ground from the
wagon bed. But a moment later, in a frenzy wherein anger furnished
only a sub-conscious motor, and joy pumped wildly at the expanding
valves of his blissful heart, Henry Sears took his thirteen-year-old
son across his knee, and spanked him in a delirium of ecstasy; spanked
him merrily, while a heavenly peace glorified his paternal soul;
spanked him, caring not how many times the little body wriggled, and
the little voice howled, and the dirty little fingers foiled his big,
bony hand as it fell. At the end of the felicitous occasion, the
father found his voice,--

"Haven't I told you enough, sir, to keep off the cars? Haven't I?
Haven't I? Answer me, sir. Do you hear me? Haven't I?"

And Jimmy Sears knew by that turn of the conversation that the
episodes of the stolen chicken and of the broken showcases were
forgotten, so he nodded a contrite head, His father returned to earth
by giving his son a few casual cuffs, with, "Will you try that again,
sir?" and continued,--

"Now, sir, let me see you walk right straight home. And just you let
me catch you down here again!"

Jimmy was wise enough to hurry along