The Magic Cameo. A Love Story

CHAPTER I.

AN ACT OF HEROISM.

A long and heavily laden passenger-train—the 3 o’clock limited express from Boston to New York—and composed chiefly of parlor-cars, was almost ready to pull out of the station. The engineer and fireman were in their places, while the porters, standing beside their steps, were awaiting the last signal from the gong.

Midway of the train, and sitting at the open window of her section, a young girl of perhaps fourteen or fifteen years, was sitting. She was a veritable pink-and-white beauty, with golden hair lying in soft, fluffy curls about her forehead, beneath which a pair of mischievous blue eyes—a saucy light gleaming in their azure depths—looked out and down upon the handsome face of a tall, well-formed youth, with an unmistakable air of high breeding about him, who was standing on the platform outside with a somewhat lugubrious expression on his countenance.

He was evidently about eighteen years of age, and everything about him indicated a scion of a wealthy aristocrat.

“Remember, Mollie,” he was saying, “you have promised to write me every week, and I shall expect you to tell me everything you hear, see, and do—yes,


 and think. I don’t know how I’m going to stand it to have you gone, for nobody knows how long, with the ocean between us and all our good times at an end.”

“Nonsense, Phil, you silly boy! You are going to be at Harvard, and, absorbed in your studies and your various clubs and societies, you will soon forget all about those ‘old times,’ and be bored beyond expression if I should take you at your word and inflict a letter, filled with foolish, girlish gossip, upon you every week,” the girl laughingly retorted.

Nevertheless, her saucy eyes grew a trifle sad while she was speaking, and a deeper pink glowed upon her cheeks.

“No, it is not ‘nonsense,’ and I shall never ‘forget,’ as you will prove to your satisfaction, if you will only do your duty,” the young man earnestly returned. “So send on your letters, and mind, Mollie, you don’t let any one steal your heart away from me, for you know you are to marry me just as soon as I am through college.”

He had lowered his voice during this last sentence, while he regarded the lovely face with a tender, admiring look that spoke volumes. The azure eyes drooped and a scarlet wave leaped to the delicately blue-veined temples; but she replied:

“Marry you as soon as you are through college, indeed!—who said so, I should like to know?” A tantalizing laugh revealed two rows of small white teeth between the ruby lips.

“Mollie! Mollie! don’t torment me,” the youthful lover returned, with a note of earnest entreaty in his


 tone. “You know that we have planned it all a hundred times, when you and I were playing ‘keep house’ together in the tent under the old elms at your home on the Hudson.”

“Oh, but that was only play, Phil. In another month you’ll be dancing attendance on the pretty Cambridge girls, and, after four years of such fun, you’ll cease to remember that such a being as Mollie Heatherford exists, or that she ever played Joan to your Darby under the elms at Sunnyhurst,” and two roguish eyes gleamed with mischief as they scanned the clouded face beneath her.

“You are cruel, Mollie. I shall always be faithful to you, and I wish you would give me some pledge before you go; say,” as his glance fell upon the small, white hand that rested upon the window-sill, and on which there gleamed several costly rings, “give me that cameo you are wearing to seal the compact. It really isn’t a lady’s ring, and would look far better on my hand than yours, and I’ll send you something pretty and nice in place of it. Now, Mollie, dear, be good to me—don’t go away and leave me in suspense.”

But Miss Mischief had no intention of being caught in the net so cleverly spread for her. She laughed roguishly back into the handsome face upturned to her, and saucily shook her head.

“No, I can’t give you the cameo, Phil,” she said, “and I’m not going to make any promises—now. Hark, there is the last bell. Good-by, and do yourself credit at college.”

The train began to move as she spoke. Phil clasped


 the hand outstretched to him while he ran along beside the car.

“Remember, it is mine. I shall claim it in four years, promise or no promise. Now, write me every week; don’t forget me; good-by.”

He had to relinquish the hand at last, but he took off his hat and waved a farewell, while his fond eyes lingered upon the sweet, smiling face looking back at him, until the train rolled out of the station.

He knew it would be the last time he would see it for a long while, for pretty Mollie Heatherford was soon to go abroad for an indefinite period. She had been spending a week with the Temples in Brookline—Phil’s home—making a farewell visit previous to her departure, and she was now on her way to New York to rejoin her father and mother, and the trio were to sail for Europe within a few days.

“By Jove! I believe she is the prettiest girl I ever saw, and she’ll have a pile of money some day. I’ll stick to Mollie and her pile, and the Cambridge girls may hang their harps on the willows for all me. I’m going to look out for number one.”

Such were the mental comments of Philip Wentworth, whose mother—a widow—had married a wealthy man by the name of Temple some four years previous. And these comments were an index to the young man’s character, which, summed up in a word, might be written selfish.

The express-train steamed rapidly on its way, bearing the pretty heiress of the Heatherford million toward her home. The day had been very hot and


 sultry—it was late in July—and some three hours after leaving Boston ominous clouds began to gather in the West. A little later the train ran into a terrific electric-storm.

Mollie Heatherford sat crouching in her section, white and trembling, and dreading every instant a deadly bolt which would bring swift destruction and annihilation to her, yet too proud and sensitive to confess her fear and seek the reassuring companionship of some fellow traveler.

The heavens were so thickly overcast, and the rain descended in such torrents it seemed almost like night in the car, and the porter began to light the lamps.

He had only half-completed his task when there burst upon the affrighted ears of the awe-stricken passengers within the train a startling, warning whistle from the engine, then a sudden shock and crash, followed by shrieks and cries of men, women, and children.

On this same afternoon, while “the Limited” was speeding on its way from Boston to New York, a youth of perhaps seventeen years might have been seen toiling beneath the blazing sun in a hay-field, adjoining the grounds surrounding a stately mansion, and which was located on the outskirts of a beautiful country town not far from New Haven.

Every now and then the young man would glance anxiously up at a small cloud that was floating along the western horizon, and every time he looked it seemed to have grown larger and larger. Then he would fall to work again with fresh vigor, apparently unmindful


 of the broiling heat and of the great beads of perspiration which rolled over his face and dropped upon the ground.

He was working alone, and it did not seem possible that he would be able to get all the hay in the field into cocks and covered with caps before the storm would be upon him. But there was a resolution in every glance of his eye, determination in every vigorous movement of his body, and he pressed on, while the cloud grew, mounting higher and higher in the heavens, while vivid flashes of lightning, followed by the heavy roll of thunder, gave warning that the storm was coming nearer and nearer.

He had timed himself well; the task was completed; the last cap spread as the first drops fell, when the youth shouldered his rake and turned his steps toward the farmhouse. He had to run for it, for the storm was fast overtaking him, but he reached the great barn just in season to escape the deluge.

Hanging his rake upon a beam, he removed his broad hat, wiped the perspiration from his face, and heaved a long sigh of relief.

“Well, I did it,” he observed, with a satisfied uplifting of his head, “but small thanks I’ll get for my efforts. However, that is not my affair. My part was to do as I’d be done by, thanks or no thanks. Great Cæsar! how it rains! What lightning! What thunder!” he exclaimed, as flash after flash swept athwart the murky sky and almost simultaneous reports crashed like the continuous firing of mighty cannons,


 while the rain came down in sheets and drenched the thirsty earth.

He stood watching the conflict of elements for a few moments, then he remarked again:

“I am sure I have earned the right to rest a while, so I’m going in to have a tussle with Tacitus for an hour or two. Ho! hum! I wonder if I shall be able to pass the exams. and enter college this fall.”

He tossed his hat upon a peg, then, passing through a side door, traversed a short passage, then a shed, and finally entered the roomy, pleasant kitchen of the farmhouse, where a tidy, good-natured looking woman was mixing biscuit for supper.

With a smile and a pleasant word to her, the young man crossed the room, opened a door and mounted a flight of stairs to a small room on the back of the house, and which overlooked a winding stream, and, a few rods away, the railroad. Here he threw himself into a chair before a table, upon which there were several books, and was soon absorbed in the “Annals of Tacitus.”

Suddenly there came a blinding flash of lightning, followed instantly by a crash that seemed to shake the very foundation of the earth.

“That was very near,” muttered the youth, looking up from his book and glancing out of the window.

A startled cry burst from him as he did so, and he sprang to his feet.

“Heavens! the old crooked maple has been struck and fallen directly across the track!” he exclaimed.

He snatched a cheap watch from his pocket and


 glanced at it, his face growing white with a terrible fear.

“The New York limited express will be due here in exactly half an hour. Unless something is done, some warning given before it rounds the curve there will be a horrible accident,” he soliloquized with pale lips.

He rushed from the room, down the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the shed, where, seizing an ax, he darted out of a back door unmindful of the pouring rain, through a garden, and down a bank beyond, and, in another moment, was on the railroad beside the great tree, whose trunk was at least twelve inches in diameter, and whose branches spread out over the track for many feet.

This maple had stood there on the bank for many years, while storm after storm had gradually undermined it, until it was held only by the strength of its own roots. The roadmaster of that section had, for some time, contemplated having it removed, as he felt that it was unsafe to allow it to remain. But he had neglected it just a little too long, and the present tempest had wrenched it from its place, causing it to fall directly across both tracks.

With quick and vigorous strokes the young man trimmed away some of the branches, so that he could get at the trunk, and then he fell to work with his ax as he had seldom worked before, forgetting that he had already performed the labor of two men that day, and the tree was finally severed just outside the rails nearest the roots.

But another division must be made before it could


 be removed from its dangerous position, and he sprang between the two tracks and fell to work again, the elements still keeping high carnival around him. The chips flew right and left, while with every blow of the ax the youth’s breath was forced from him with a shrill, hissing sound, showing that he was putting forth his strength to the utmost. But he had hewn only about two-thirds of the log when the whistle of a locomotive fell upon his ear and warned him that the train was only a mile away, speeding on toward swift destruction.

What should he do? He knew there would not be time to complete his task and drag the tree from the track before the train would be upon him, while there was a bridge over the road not fifty feet behind him, and beneath it a foaming, rushing, thundering torrent, into which the engine and coaches, if derailed, would doubtless plunge headlong.

A wild look of fear shot into his eyes. An expression of horror was on his pallid face as these thoughts flashed through his mind. The next instant he snatched a red bandanna from his pocket and started on a swift run down the track, tying the handkerchief to a branch of the maple as he went. On, on, like a deer he ran. The curve was reached and rounded. The train was in sight. Nearer and nearer it came thundering on; then the short, sharp sound of the danger-whistle fell upon the boy’s ear, and his heart bounded into his throat with a sudden sense of relief as he realized that his signal had been seen and recognized.

Then he dashed it to the ground, and, turning, sped


 back to the maple, and fell to work again with his ax with all his might.

The moment the engineer had espied the improvised flag he knew there was danger ahead, and, blowing the signal to warn the brakemen, he reversed his engine, and opened the valves, and it was this ready response to the waving bandanna that had caused the crash and shock which had so frightened and shaken up everybody on the train, although no real damage had been done, and he finally brought his engine to a standstill within three feet of the youth, and just in season to see the last blow from his ax, which cleft the trunk of the maple asunder.

Both he and the fireman sprang to the ground and ran toward him, reaching him just as, with a faintly murmured “Thank God!” he fell forward exhausted, and was caught in their strong arms before he could touch the ground. He did not entirely lose consciousness; but he was too spent and weak to move or even speak.

Many of the passengers left the train and gathered around him in spite of the rain, which continued to fall heavily, although it was gradually abating.

The conductor, comprehending at once what had occurred, and anxious to lose no more time than was absolutely necessary, ordered the youth to be put aboard the train and made as comfortable as possible until they reached the next station. Then the brakemen, with the engineer and fireman, removed the debris from the tracks, after which everybody was ordered back into the coaches, and the train went steaming on its way once more.