The fit that had come upon me, like a hideous nightmare seemed, Till I rubbed my eyes and started like a sleeper who has dreamed. For a time the box had vanished--I'd worked like a mere machine-- My mind had been on the wander, and I'd neither heard nor seen, With a start I thought of Johnny, and I turned the boy to seek, Then I uttered a groan of anguish, for my lips refused to speak; There had flashed such a scene of horror swift on my startled sight That it curdled my blood in terror and sent my red lips white.
It was all in one awful moment--I saw that the boy was lost: He had gone for a toy, I fancied, some child from a train had tossed; The local was easing slowly to stop at the station here, And the limited mail was coming, and I had the line to clear. I could hear the roar of the engine, I could almost feel its breath, And right on the center metals stood my boy in the jaws of death; On came the fierce fiend, tearing straight for the center line, And the hand that must wreck or save it, O merciful God, was mine!
'Twas a hundred lives or Johnny's. O Heaven! what could I do?-- Up to God's ear that moment a wild, fierce question flew-- "What shall I do, O Heaven?" and sudden and loud and clear On the wind came the words, "Your duty," borne to my listening ear. Then I set my teeth, and my breathing was fierce and short and quick. "My boy!" I cried, but he heard not; and then I went blind and sick; The hot black smoke of the engine came with a rush before, I turned the mail to the center, and by it flew with a roar.
Then I sank on my knees in horror, and hid my ashen face-- I had given my child to Heaven; his life was a hundred's grace. Had I held my hand a moment, I had hurled the flying mail To shatter the creeping local that stood on the other rail! Where is my boy, my darling? O God! let me hide my eyes. How can I look--his father--on that which there mangled lies? That voice!--O merciful Heaven!--'tis the child's, and he calls my name! I hear, but I cannot see him, for my eyes are filled with flame.
I knew no more that night, sir, for I fell, as I heard the boy; The place reeled round, and I fainted,--swooned with the sudden joy. But I heard on the Christmas morning, when I woke in my own warm bed With Alice's arms around me, and a strange wild dream in my head, That she'd come by the early local, being anxious about the lad, And had seen him there on the metals, and the sight nigh drove her mad-- She had seen him just as the engine of the Limited closed my view, And she leapt on the line and saved him just as the mail dashed through.