{"product_id":"2940014466011","title":"The Wreckers","description":"At Sand Creek Siding\u003cbr\u003eAs a general proposition, I don't believe much in the things called\u003cbr\u003e\"hunches.\" They are bad for the digestion, and as often as not are\u003cbr\u003elike\u003cbr\u003ethose patent barometers that are always pointing to \"Set Fair\" when it\u003cbr\u003eis raining like Noah's flood. But there are exceptions to all rules,\u003cbr\u003eand\u003cbr\u003ewe certainly uncovered the biggest one of the lot--the boss and I--the\u003cbr\u003enight we left Portland and the good old Pacific Coast.\u003cbr\u003eIt was this way. We had finished the construction work on the Oregon\u003cbr\u003eMidland; had quit, cleaned up the offices, drawn our last pay-checks,\u003cbr\u003etold everybody good-by, and were on our way to the train, when I had\u003cbr\u003eone\u003cbr\u003eof those queer little premonitory chills you hear so much about and\u003cbr\u003eknew\u003cbr\u003ejust as well as could be that we were never going to pull through to\u003cbr\u003eChicago without getting a jolt of some sort. The reason--if you'll\u003cbr\u003ecall\u003cbr\u003eit a reason--was that, just before we came to the railroad station,\u003cbr\u003ethe\u003cbr\u003eboss walked calmly under a ladder standing in front of a new building;\u003cbr\u003eand besides that, it was the thirteenth day of the month, a Friday,\u003cbr\u003eand\u003cbr\u003eraining like the very mischief.\u003cbr\u003eJust to sort of toll us along, maybe, the fates didn't begin on us\u003cbr\u003ethat\u003cbr\u003enight. They waited until the next day, and then proceeded to shove us\u003cbr\u003ein\u003cbr\u003ebehind a freight-train wreck at Widner, Idaho, where we lost twelve\u003cbr\u003ehours. It looked as if that didn't amount to much, because we weren't\u003cbr\u003edue anywhere at any particular time. The boss was on his way home for\u003cbr\u003ea\u003cbr\u003elittle visit with his folks in Illinois, and beyond that he was going\u003cbr\u003eto\u003cbr\u003emeet a bunch of Englishmen in Montreal, and maybe let them make him\u003cbr\u003eGeneral Manager of one of the Canadian railroads.\u003cbr\u003eSo Mr. Norcross was in no special hurry, and neither was I. I wasn't\u003cbr\u003eunder pay, but I expected to be when we reached Canada. I had been\u003cbr\u003ePage 3\u003cbr\u003eThe Wreckers\u003cbr\u003econfidential clerk and shorthand man for the boss on the Midland\u003cbr\u003econstruction, and he was taking me along partly because he knows a\u003cbr\u003ecracking good stenographer when he sees one, but mostly because I was\u003cbr\u003edead anxious to go anywhere he was going.\u003cbr\u003eBut to come back to the Widner delay: if it hadn't been for that\u003cbr\u003etwelve-hour lay-out we would have caught the Saturday night train on\u003cbr\u003ethe\u003cbr\u003ePioneer Short Line, instead of the day train Sunday morning, and there\u003cbr\u003ewould have been no meeting with Mrs. Sheila and Maisie Ann; no\u003cbr\u003etelegram\u003cbr\u003efrom Mr. Chadwick, because it wouldn't have found us; no hold-up at\u003cbr\u003eSand\u003cbr\u003eCreek Siding; in short, nothing would have happened that did happen.\u003cbr\u003eBut\u003cbr\u003eI mustn't get ahead of my story.\u003cbr\u003eIt was on Sunday that the jolt began to get ready to land on us. Mr.\u003cbr\u003eNorcross had been a railroad man for so long that he had forgotten how\u003cbr\u003eto knock off on Sundays, and right soon after breakfast, with the help\u003cbr\u003eof a little Pullman berth table and me and my typewriter, he turned\u003cbr\u003eour\u003cbr\u003esection into a business office, saying that now we had a good quiet\u003cbr\u003eday,\u003cbr\u003ewe'd clean up the million or so odds and ends of correspondence he'd\u003cbr\u003ebeen letting go while we were tussling for the Midland right-of-way\u003cbr\u003ethrough the Oregon mountains.\u003cbr\u003eBy this time, you will understand, we were rocketing along over the\u003cbr\u003ePioneer Short Line, and were supposed to be due at Portal City at\u003cbr\u003ehalf-past seven that evening. From where he sat dictating to me the\u003cbr\u003eboss\u003cbr\u003ewas facing forward and now and then an absent sort of look came into\u003cbr\u003ehis\u003cbr\u003eeyes while he was talking off his letters, and it puzzled me because\u003cbr\u003eit\u003cbr\u003ewasn't like him. I may as well say here as anywhere that one of his\u003cbr\u003estrong points is to be always \"at himself\" under all sorts of\u003cbr\u003econditions.\u003cbr\u003eSo, as I say, I was sort of puzzled; and one of the times after he had\u003cbr\u003egiven me a full grist of letters and had gone off to smoke while I\u003cbr\u003etyped a few thousand lines from my notes to catch up, I made a\u003cbr\u003ediscovery. There were two people in Section Five just ahead of us, a\u003cbr\u003eyoung woman and a girl of maybe fifteen or so, and the Pullman was the\u003cbr\u003eold-fashioned kind, with low seat-backs. I put it up that in those\u003cbr\u003eabsent-eyed intervals Mr. Norcross had been studying the back of the\u003cbr\u003eyoung woman's neck. I was measurably sure it wasn't the little girl's.\u003cbr\u003eAlong in the forenoon I made an excuse to go and get a drink of water\u003cbr\u003eout of the forward cooler, and on the way back I took a good square\u003cbr\u003elook\u003cbr\u003ePage 4\u003cbr\u003eThe Wreckers\u003cbr\u003eat our neighbors in Number Five. At that I didn't wonder at the boss's\u003cbr\u003etemporary lapses any more whatever. The young woman was pretty enough\u003cbr\u003eto\u003cbr\u003estart a stopped clock--only \"pretty\" isn't just the word, either;\u003cbr\u003ethere\u003cbr\u003ewasn't any word, when you come right down to it. And the little girl\u003cbr\u003ewas\u003cbr\u003esimply a peach--a nice, downy, rosy peach; chunky, round-faced,\u003cbr\u003esunny-haired, jolly;","brand":"All classic book warehouse","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47146069819632,"sku":"2940014466011","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014466011_p0.jpg?v=1763618322","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014466011","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}