THUNDER, STARRING LON CHANEY by Philip J. Riley

Author:Philip J. Riley [Riley, Philip J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BearManor Media
Published: 2014-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

A very painful task, and one which the good, decent Jeff wanted to be free of. But he had been told:

“Old fellow, you are a longtime friend of Grumpy Anderson. You will know best how to explain this to him. Perhaps he will suffer less if you tell him”

“It is still a rough chore” he thought to himself.

How was he going to break this tragic news? What words could he find?

Alas! He felt too much sorrow himself to hide his expression of grief.

And when he arrived in front of the locomotive shed, where he knew Grumpy was preparing to depart, he stood there hesitating for what seemed an eternity.

Finally, finding a young coal loader, he simply said:

“Go tell Grumpy Anderson that his old mate Jeff is waiting for him at the door with something important to tell him...”

How was he going to tell him?

Anderson appeared. He looked worried.

“What’s up Jeff? What do you want?”

“My poor friend!” Jeff said simply. And he burst into tears, wringing his hands.

“A misfortune has happened?””a really great one...”

“But to who?...Jim?...”

“Have courage Grumpy!”

“What!...He’s dead?..”

Jeff didn’t reply.

“But it’s not possible!...He left the house this evening to go to work...He was happy..healthy..strong...It’s not possible!...It can’t have ended in disaster...”

“Unhappily!”

Grumpy Anderson wavered. It seemed as if he were going to fall into a heap. But he stiffened himself. He furiously wiped away the tears from his eyes, surprised, perhaps, that they were the first he had ever shed.

“Jeff, tell me what happened”

“It’s like this: Jim had come to work and had to go with train 1149 But at the signal, the convoy didn’t start. The ice had frozen the brakes. The wheels were locked. So Jim jumped on the roof of one of the wagons, then another, jumping from one to another, releasing the breaks. He had freed the last wagon and was climbing down when the convoy suddenly started. He staggered. His shoes didn’t have a grip on the ice which covered the roofs. He slid and fell off the side...Just then, an oncoming train....”

“Poor Jim!...And he said nothing?”

“No! It was over so quickly!...Before he fell, he was shouting at his laughing colleagues: “you can say to my father that, thanks to Jim, a blocked train would depart on time, he will be happy!” Those were his last words”

Grumpy leaned a little more on the arm of his friend.

In just a few minutes, he had grown old again, and his sobs had grown quieter...

He murmured:

“What grief! What grief!”

But he didn’t know what else to say.

“My old friend Grumpy, in this painful time, you can believe that all your friends are with you with all our hearts”

This was the phrase that Jeff had prepared and which he was uttering, as if out of the blue, at the conclusion of this painful meeting. But his emotions could not remove the banality of the phrase.

“It’s the job” he added.

“It’s the job” echoed Grumpy.

Then, after a pause:

“How am I going to tell Molly and Davey? To this young girl who loved

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