Sendusout

I rode in the Cab of a Locomotive, and I spake with the man who drave the Engine, and we went at High Speed. And High Speed is one thing from the rear end of the Observation Car, and Quite Another Thing from the cab of a Locomotive; and it giveth a man the Impression that he is not running a Sewing Machine.

And I looked out unto the Track.

And I spake unto the Engineer, and I said Behold, how many are the Curves; whereas, the Map which this Company doth print with its Time Table doth show the Road to be a Straight Line Joining every Great City in America to every other Great City.

And he said, That is how it looketh on the map; but to the engineer every railroad is a Double System of Curves, the Curves on the Surface and the Curves Up and Down. A railroad Curves to get a better approach to a bridge, or to enter a town, or to avoid a swamp or a hill, or to go around the land of some Farmer who tried to sell his land at four prices, so there is a Curve to the right and a Tangent, and then a Curve to the left; and sometime there is a Reverse Curve with no Tangent between, in which case the Passenger doth think Unkind Thoughts of the Engineer without knowing why he is jerked Galley-West. Believe me, the business of running an air ship like this is something more than opening and shutting the Throttle, for there are always the Curves to pull around and see around, and thou dost never know what doth lie in wait around the rim of the Curve, nor how strongly the Train will be tempted to disregard the Curve and survey a new Tangent of its own.

And I said, What is the other system of Curves?

And he said, No roadbed is level. Even in a Prairie Country, the roadbed descendeth to a little stream, and ascendeth to a little hill, and then descendeth to a larger stream, and ascendeth to a larger hill; and it must all be considered in terms of Coal Consumption, and Steam Pressure, and the Weight of the Train, and the Condition of the Track whether it be Dry or Wet or Frosty.

And I said, Though has many things to trouble thee that I wot not of.

And he said, Passengers mostly think that all an Engineer hath to do is to keep the train between the Fences of the Right of Way, and get in on Time. Behold, they consider not the Curves of either class. For a Railway is not all Tangents.

And I considered and said, Thy business is like unto mine. For there be Railroad men who think that I have only to stand in the Pulpit one day in seven, and open my mouth and the Lord will fill it. Behold, there are Curves as well as Tangent on my Right of Way, yea, Reverse Curves, and some Heavy Grades.

And he said, I reckon it is so with every man’s business. Though to another man it looketh like a Straight Line surveyed across the Map, yet to him that is on the inside, every business hath not only its Tangents but its Curves.

And we took each other by the Right Hand, and we bowed low and said our Salaams, and I bade him Farewell and Departed. And each of us knew that the other man’s job was like unto his own.

The “modern” day parables were written by William Eleazer Barton in the first years of the 20th century. Publised in 1919 the collection looks to find evidence of the kingdom of heaven in everyday events and occurances as described by the author in the introduction.

This site makes no claim of ownership or authorship of these words. It simply exists to share these public domain stories with a new audience and new generations