A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill

								

Myrtella fer the rent this month, because this is her home, too. There
ain't a board in it but I'd share with her, she knows that.' You tell
her all I said, Maria, don't you keep back nothin'. Farewell!” and with
an affectionate glance and a wave of the hand Phineas departed.
Now if he had followed the straight and narrow path, indicated by the
rocks and tin cans, that led to the Junction, instead of the broad
highway indicated by the plank walk that led to the Cant-Pass-It, the
tragedy that hovered over Billy-goat Hill might have been averted.
But he had left the saloon in the midst of a heated controversy with two
Italians, concerning the supremacy of America over all other nations.
The fact that his country had never been proud of him in no way deterred
him from being very proud of his country. Until the dispute was properly
ended he felt that the honor of the nation was at stake.
His patriotic fervor ran so high that by the time he reached the
crossing, the passenger train was already in sight. Jires, helpless and
terrified at his post, was distractedly shouting directions from his
little sentinel box.
“Flathers! There's a washout down the road! We've got to hold up the
passenger train. Get out the red flag! Quick man! Be ready to signal the
engineer. Three times cross ways! The red flag, you fool! the RED FLAG!
Oh, my God!”
For Phineas Flathers, to whom all flags now looked red, white and blue,
was standing at the crossing, joyously waving a white flag, while the
engineer with his hand on the throttle, released the brakes, and sent
his train thundering down the grade to destruction.



       *       *       *       *       *
Meanwhile Myrtella, having finished her visit in a grand finale of
pyrotechnics, in which she displayed Phineas to his wife in a number
of blazing lifelike portraits, took her departure. It was not the first
time she had faced the alternative of paying the rent, or seeing her
only relative turned into the street, nor was it the first time that,
after giving innumerable pieces of her mind to Maria, she had followed
them up with the rent.
All the way home she discussed the matter audibly with herself, and was
still muttering darkly when she reached the Queeringtons'. So absorbed
was she in her own wrongs that she did not notice that the front door
stood open, and figures were hurrying about in the hall.
As she let herself into the side door, a white-faced young girl, with
her hair brushed straight back into a long braid, rushed through the
pantry.
“What's the matter, Miss Hattie?”
The girl steadied herself by the banister. “It's father!” she said
with chattering teeth. “There's been an awful accident just below the
Junction. They can't even bring him home. They are taking him to a place
out there, a Colonel Carsey's. Colonel Carsey was killed. He was sitting
right by father. Oh! Myrtella, I'm so afraid father's going to die!”