While Mortals Sleep_ Unpublished Short Fiction - Kurt Vonnegut [24]
“Yes,” said Ella. And then she spoiled it. “I guess.”
“Now, there’s this shipment coming in this afternoon, and the block system is all balled up, so, I’m sorry, but—”
“She could help you with the block system,” said Earl’s mother. “Ella could help you this afternoon, and then tonight would be free.”
“I would, Earl,” said Ella.
“Well, you see—” said Earl. “That is, I mean—” He shrugged. “OK.”
* * *
Ella worked hard and gamely in the basement. Her slender fingers were clever, and she learned the knack of splicing and soldering wires after one demonstration from Earl.
“By golly, Ella,” said Earl, “we should have tried this before. A circus, isn’t it?”
“Yup,” said Ella, dropping a bead of solder onto a connection.
Earl, as he moved busily about the edge of the layout, hugged Ella ardently every time he passed her. “See? You never know till you try, eh?”
“Nope.”
“And, when you get that last circuit done there, then the real fun begins. We’ll get the trains rolling, and see how the system works.”
“Anything you say,” said Ella. “There—the circuit’s done.”
“Wonderful,” said Earl. Together, they hid the block system’s wires under the roadbeds.
Then Earl put his arm around Ella, and gave her a long, now poetic, now philosophic, now technical lecture on the operation of a layout. Grandly, he seated her on the stool and guided her hand to the throttle. He put his engineer’s cap on her head, where it came to rest on level with her ears. Her large, dark eyes were all but hidden by the visor, glittering like the eyes of an animal at bay in a shallow hole.
“OK,” said Earl judiciously, “let’s see, what’ll we have for a situation?”
“You’d go a long way before you found a more unlikely one than this one,” said Ella, looking bleakly over the miniature landscape, awaiting instructions.
Earl was deep in thought. “That’s the difference between a kid’s toy railroad and an honest-to-gosh pike,” he said. “A kid will just run his train around and around in circles. This thing is set up to do hauling jobs just like the real thing.”
“I’m glad there’s a difference,” said Ella.
“OK, I’ve got the situation,” said Earl. “Let’s say a big load of frozen beef has just been brought in to the Earl City yards for shipment to Harrisonburg.”
“Lord!” said Ella helplessly.
“Don’t get panicky. That’s the thing—keep your head and think it out,” said Earl affectionately. “Just take that Baldwin diesel switcher, pick up those reefers in the hold yard, run ’em over to the loading platform, then back to the icing plant, then over the hump track to the southbound classification yard. Then pick ’em up with your Bowser in the roundhouse, hook on whatever’s in the forwarding yard, and off you go.”
“I do?”
“Here,” said Earl, “I’ll give you a hand on this one.” He stood behind Ella, his arms enveloping her as he pushed buttons and switches.
Hours later, the two of them were still in the basement, now side by side on stools before the control panel.
Ecstatic, fresh as a daisy, Earl closed a circuit, and a snub-nosed diesel-electric grumbled out of a siding, picked up a string of hopper cars, and labored up a long plaster grade to a coal loader. Dingadingadingading! went a warning bell at a crossing, and a little robot popped out of his shack to wave a lantern.
Exhausted, but sticking grimly to her post, Ella drove her passenger express through an underpass, beneath the diesel-electric.
Earl pressed a button, Ella pressed another, and the two locomotives whistled cheerily at each other.
“Ella—” called Earl’s mother from the top of the stairs. “If you and Earl are going out to supper, you’d better get dressed.”
“Seemed like minutes, didn’t it?” laughed Earl. “Whole afternoon gone like that!” He snapped his fingers.
Ella took his hand, and seemed to come alive again, like a