Heroes of Everyday Life Author:Fanny E. Coe Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE DAY LABORER To all men, even to those in the humblest walks of life, the opportunity for heroic service may come at any moment. In the summer of 1876 a... more » number of navvies were at work upon the line of railway between Glasgow and Paisley. They stood back upon the approach of an express train, which, upon passing them, would cross a lofty viaduct. The engine was in sight. One of the men, named Jamie- son, saw that a sleeper had started, and that unless it was replaced the train would be wrecked, — wrecked upon a viaduct. There was no time for words. The navvymade a sign to his nephew standing beside him, and the two rushed forward. They fixed the sleeper, saved the train, and were left dead upon the line. The funeral was largely attended, especially by fellow workmen, who had turned out to do honor to their comrades. " We laid them," writes the Reverend James Brown, " in the same grave in an old churchyard on a hillside that slopes down to the very edge of the railway. As the two biers were carried down the hill, the bearers being the friends and comrades of the dead, the trains were coming and going. I thought of Tennyson's lines: — The Jamiesons Save The Train From painting by Walter Crane Let the sound of those he wrought for, And the feet of those he fought for, Echo round his bones for evermore." 1 An enterprise that attracted wide attention at the time was the attempt to tunnel the Hudson River between Jersey City and New York. It was of the first importance to commerce, for it would afford direct access to New York to the railroads having their termini on the New Jersey side of the river. It involved a novel and difficult feat of engineering, and for the public it had the added fascination of danger. The veriest layman appreciated the peril in which the wor...« less