Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories

								

get on for when you didn't have anything to pay your fare with?"
"I tell you I lost my pocket-book after I got on!" she said doggedly; "I
ain't going to get off, you daren't put me off!"
Phelan, who had sauntered up, grew sympathetic. He, too, had experienced
the annoyance of being pressed for his fare when it was inconvenient to
produce it.
"Go ahead," demanded the conductor firmly, "I don't want to push you
off, but if you don't step down and out right away, I'll have it to do."
The woman's expression changed from defiance to terror. She clung to the
brake with both hands and looked at him fearfully.
"No, no, don't touch me!" she cried. "Don't make me get off! I've got to
get to Cincinnati. My man's there. He's been hurt in the foundry.
He's--maybe he's dying now."
"I can't help that, maybe it's so and maybe it ain't. You never had any
money when you got on this train and you know it. Go on, step off!"
"But I did!" she cried wildly; "I did. Oh, God! don't put me off."
The train began to move, and the conductor seized the woman's arms from
behind and forced her forward. A moment more and she would be pushed off
the lowest step. She turned beseeching eyes on the little group of
spectators, and as she did so Phelan Harrihan sprang forward and with
his hand on the railing, ran along with the slow-moving train.
With a deft movement he bent forward and apparently snatched something
from the folds of her skirt.
"Get on to your luck now," he said with an encouraging smile that played
havoc with the position of his features; "if here ain't your pocket-book
all the time!"
The hysterical woman looked from the unfamiliar little brown purse in
her hand, to the snub-nosed, grimy face of the young man running along
the track, then she caught her breath.
"Why,--" she cried unsteadily, "yes--yes, it's my purse."
Phelan loosened his hold on the railing and had only time to scramble
breathlessly up the bank before the down train, the train for Nashville
which was to have been his, whizzed past.
He watched it regretfully as it slowed up at the station, then almost
immediately pulled out again for the south, carrying his hopes with it.
"Corporal," said Phelan, to the dog, who had looked upon the whole
episode as a physical-culture exercise indulged in for his special
benefit, "a noble act of charity is never to be regretted, but wasn't I
the original gun, not to wait for the change?"
His lack of business method seemed to weigh upon him, and he continued
to apologize to Corporal:
"It was so sudden, you know, Corp. Couldn't see a lady ditched, when I
had a bit of stuffed leather in my pocket. And two hundred miles to
Nashville! Well I'll--be--jammed!"
He searched in his trousers pockets and found a dime in one and a hole
in the other. It was an old trick of his to hide a piece of money in
time of prosperity, and then discover it in the blackness of adversity.
He held the dime out ruefully: "That's punk and plaster for supper, but