No one ever walked ahead of him, no one ever suggested things to
do or places to go, when the engineer's son was around. He was always
the vanguard, but fortunately was the kind of boy who rarely, if ever,
led his followers into trouble. Finally someone nicknamed him "the Con,"
as short for "Conductor," for he still played at railroading, and had
long since decided that when school days were over he would go as a
train hand, and perhaps be lucky enough to be sometimes in his father's
crew. It was about this time, when Benny was twelve, that he invented
the signal code, and more than once it got "the gang" out of serious
trouble. The little divisional town where he lived was shut in between
hills so closely that it was a veritable furnace in summer, and all who
could went out camping, or built shacks on the Three Islands in the
little lake two miles farther down the track. So Benny and his little
brother and sister went with their mother to join some neighbors
camping, and dad would come down on a hand-car on off nights to get a
breath of air, and the coal dust blown out of his keen eyes.
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