For a day or two it seemed to Stephen that he would never cease to be haunted by the shame and regret that followed his confiscation of the big red touring car, or forget the good resolutions he made in consequence; but within an incredibly short time both considerations were thrust into the background by the rush of life's busy current.

School and athletics kept him occupied so that he had little leisure for thought, and when he was in the house his father and mother smiled on him as affectionately as before, which did much to restore to him his normal poise. Long ago the boys had dropped the motor-car episode from their memories and even Bud Taylor did not refer to it when he and Steve came together to organize the hockey team for the approaching matches.

In the meantime the Thanksgiving holidays were drawing near and Mr.

Tolman suggested that he and Stephen should run over to New York for a short visit. With the prospect of so much pleasure was it strange the boy ceased to dwell on the unhappiness of the past or the possibility of disaster in the future? The coming journey to New York was, to be sure, no great novelty, for Stephen had often accompanied his father there on business excursions; nevertheless such an outing was a treat to which he looked forward as a sort of Arabian Nights adventure when for a short time he stayed at a large hotel, ate whatever food pleased his fancy, and went sight-seeing and to innumerable "shows" with his father. He was wont to return to Coventry after the holiday with a throng of happy memories and many a tale of marvels with which to entertain the boys.

Therefore when he and his father boarded the express Thanksgiving week the lad was in the highest spirits.

"Motor-cars are all very well," observed Mr. Tolman, as the porter stowed their luggage away, "but on a cold night like this a Pullman car on a well-laid track is not to be despised. Eh, son?"

"I don't believe that I should want to travel to New York in a touring-car at this time of year," agreed Stephen, smiling.

"It is getting too late in the season to use an open car, anyway,"

rejoined his father. "I have delayed putting the car up because I have been hoping we might have a little more warm weather; but I guess the warm days have gone and the winter has come to stay now."

"But there is no snow yet, Dad."

"No. Still it is too chilly to drive with any comfort. The Taylors shipped their car off last week and when I get home I shall do the same."

Stephen looked disappointed.

"I don't mind the cold when I'm wrapped up," he ventured.

"You are not at the wheel, son," was his father's quick retort. "The man who is has his fingers nipped roundly, I can a.s.sure you. It is a pity we have become so soft and shrink so from discomfort. Think what our forbears endured when they went on journeys!"

"Neither the English stagecoaches nor Stephenson's railroad could have been very comfortable, to judge from your descriptions of them," laughed Steve.

"Oh, don't heap all the blame on the English," his father replied. "Our own modes of travel in the early days were quite as bad as were those on the other side of the water."

"I wish you would tell me about the first American railroads," said the boy. "I was wondering about them the other night."

Mr. Tolman settled back in his seat thoughtfully.

"America," he answered presently, "went through a pioneer period of railroading not unlike England's. Many strange steam inventions were tried in different parts of the country, and many fantastic scientific notions put before the public. Even previous to Watt's steam engine Oliver Evans had astonished the quiet old city of Philadelphia by driving through its peaceful streets in a queer steam vehicle, half carriage and half boat, which he had mounted on wheels. Evans was an ingenious fellow, a born inventor if ever there was one, who worked out quite a few steam devices, some of which Watt later improved and adopted. Then in 1812 John Stevens of New York got interested in the steam idea and urged the commissioners of his state to build a railroad between Lake Erie and Albany, suggesting that a steam engine not unlike the one that propelled the Hudson River ferryboats could be used as power for the trains. He was enthusiastic over the scheme but the New York officials had no faith in the proposition, insisting that a steam locomotive could never be produced that would grip the rails with sufficient tension to keep cars on the track or draw a heavy load."

"They'd better have given the plan a showdown," interrupted Steve grimly.

"No doubt that is true," admitted his father. "However, it is very easy for us, with our knowledge of science, to look back and laugh at their mistakes. The world was very new in those days and probably had we lived at that time and been equally ignorant of railroads and engines we should have been just as cautious and unbelieving. The railroad was still a young invention, you must remember, and to many persons it seemed a rather mad, uncertain enterprise."

"When was the first American railroad built?" inquired the lad.

"If by a railroad you mean something which moved along rails like a tram-car, the first such road was built at Quincy, Ma.s.s., in 1826; but it was not a steam railroad. It was merely a train of cars drawn by horses along a track that spanned a series of stone ties. Nor was it very extensive in length. In fact, it was only three miles long and probably would not have been built at all if the question had not arisen as to how the heavy blocks of granite necessary for the construction of Bunker Hill monument were to be carried from the quarries to the Neponset River, the point from which they were to be shipped to Charlestown. Bryant, the builder of the road, had heard of Stephenson's successful use of tracks at the Newcastle coal mines and saw no reason why a road of similar pattern could not be laid from the quarries to the ship landing. If such a plan could be worked out, he argued, it would be a great saving of time and labor. Accordingly the railroad was built at a cost of more than ten thousand dollars a mile and it unquestionably performed the service required of it even if it did necessitate the expenditure of a good deal of money. Since the grade sloped toward the river the heavily loaded cars moved down the tracks very easily and as they were empty on their return the ascent was made with equal ease. All the year round this quaint railroad was in constant use, a snowplow being attached to the front car in winter to clear the deep snow from the tracks."

"I suppose that was the first railroad snowplow, too," observed Stephen.

"I suppose it was," his father agreed. "For some time afterward this old road with its granite ties was the model from which American engineers took their inspiration, it being many years before railroad builders realized that wooden ties were more flexible and made a better, even though less durable roadbed."

"Were any more railroads like the Quincy road built in America?"

questioned Steve.

"Yes, a railroad very much like it was built in the Pennsylvania mining country to transport coal from the mines at Summit down to the Lehigh Valley for shipment. An amusing story is told of this railroad, too. It extended down the mountainside in a series of sharp inclines between which lay long stretches of level ground. Now you know when you coast downhill your speed will give you sufficient impetus to carry you quite a way on a flat road before you come to a stop. So it was with this railroad. But the force the cars gained on the hillside could not carry them entirely across these long levels, and therefore platform cars were built on which a number of mules could be transported and later harnessed to the cars to pull them across the flat stretches. At the end of each level the mules would be taken aboard again and carried down to the next one, where they were once more harnessed to the cars. Now the tale goes that to the chagrin of the railroad people the mules soon grew to enjoy riding so much that they had no mind to get out and walk when the level places were reached and it became almost impossible to make them. All of which proves the theory I advanced before--that too much luxury is not good for any of us and will even spoil a perfectly good mule."

Steve chuckled in response.

"I'm afraid with railroads like these America did not make much progress," he said.

"No very rapid strides," owned his father. "Nevertheless men were constantly hammering away at the railroad idea. In out-of-the-way corners of the country were many persons who had faith that somehow, they knew not how, the railroad would in time become a practical agency of locomotion. When the Rainhill contest of engines took place in England before the opening of the Liverpool-Manchester road, and Stephenson carried off the prize, Horatio Allen, one of the engineers of the Delaware and Hudson Ca.n.a.l Company, was sent over to examine the locomotives competing and if possible buy one for a new railroad they hoped to put into operation. Unluckily none of the engines were for sale but he was able to purchase at Stourbridge a steam locomotive and this he shipped to New York. It reached there in 1829--a ridiculous little engine weighing only seven tons. Before its arrival a track of hemlock rails fastened to hemlock ties had been laid and as the Lackawanna River lay directly in the path of the proposed road a wooden trestle about a hundred feet high had been built across the river. This trestle was of very frail construction and calculated to sustain only a four-ton engine and therefore when the seven-ton locomotive from Stourbridge arrived and was found to weigh nearly double that specification there was great consternation."

"Did they tear the trestle down and build another?" asked Steve with much interest.

Mr. Tolman did not heed the question.

"Now in addition to the disconcerting size of the engine," he continued, "the wooden rails which had been laid during the previous season had warped with the snows and were in anything but desirable condition. So altogether the prospect of trying out the enterprise, on which a good deal of money had already been spent, was not alone disheartening but perilous."

"The inspectors or somebody else would have put an end to such a crazy scheme jolly quick if it had been in our day, wouldn't they?" grinned the boy.

"Yes, n.o.body could get very far with anything so unsafe now," his father responded. "But all this happened before the era of inspectors, construction laws, or the _Safety First_ slogan. Hence no one interfered with Horatio Allen. If he chose to break his neck and the necks of many others as well he was free to do so. Therefore, nothing daunted, he got up steam in his baby engine, which was the more absurd for having painted at its front a fierce red lion, and off he started--along his hemlock railroad. The frail bridge swayed and bent as the locomotive rumbled over it but by sheer miracle it did not give way and Allen reached the other side without being plunged to the bottom of the river."

Steve drew a long breath of relief.

"Did they go on using the railroad after that?" he asked.

His father shook his head.

"No," he replied. "Although every one agreed that the demonstration was a success the wooden rails were not durable enough to last long and the company was not rich enough to replace them with metal ones. Therefore, in spite of Allen's pleas and his wonderful exhibition of courage, the road fell into disuse, the engine was taken apart, and the enterprise abandoned."

"What a pity!"

"Yes, it was, for had New York persevered in this undertaking the railroad might have made its advent in the United States much sooner than it did. As it was, once again, like a meteor, the experiment flashed into sight and disappeared with success well within reach."

"And who was the next promoter?"

"Peter Cooper was the next experimenter of note," Mr. Tolman answered, "and his adventure with railroading was entertaining, too. He lived in Baltimore and being of a commercial trend of mind he decided that if a railroad could be built through the Potomac Valley and across the Alleghany Mountains it might win back for his state the trade that was rapidly being s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the Erie and Pennsylvania Ca.n.a.l. With this idea in mind Cooper built thirteen miles of track and after experimenting with a sort of tram-car and finding it a failure he had a car made that should be propelled by sails."

"Sails!" gasped Steve.

His father smiled at his astonishment.

"Yes, sails!" he repeated. "Into this strangely equipped vehicle he invited some of the editors of the Baltimore papers, and little sensing what was before them the party set forth on its excursion."

"Did the car go?"

"Oh, it went all right!" chuckled Mr. Tolman. "The trouble was not with its _going_. The difficulty was that as it flew along the rails a cow suddenly loomed in its pathway and as she did not move out of the way of the approaching car she and the railroad pioneers came into collision.

With a crash the car toppled over and the editors, together with the enraged Peter Cooper, were thrown out into the mud. Of course the affair caused the public no end of laughter but to Cooper and his guests it proved convincingly that sails were not a desirable subst.i.tute for steam power."

"I suppose Cooper then went to work to build some other kind of a railroad," mused Steve.

"That is exactly what he did," was the rejoinder. "He did not, however, do this deliberately but rather fell into a dilemma that left him no other choice. You see a group of men coaxed him to buy some land through which it was expected the new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was to pa.s.s. These prospectors figured that as the road was already started and a portion of the wooden track laid the railroad was a sure thing, and by selling their land to the railroad authorities they would be enabled to turn quite a fortune for themselves. In all good faith Cooper had joined the company and then, after discovering that the railroad men had apparently abandoned their plan to build, in dastardly fashion, one after another of the promoters wriggled out of the enterprise and left poor Peter Cooper with a large part of his money tied up in a worthless, partially constructed railroad."