There had been clamors for the positions of honor, and she, from weakness of sex, had been overborne.

She, whose heart cried out for the distinction of train-boy, conductor, engineer, brakeman, or fireman, in the order named, had been forced into the only degrading post in the game--a mere passenger without voice or office in those delicate feats of administration.

And she suffered--suffered with a pathetic loyalty, for she knew as well as they that some one _had_ to be the passenger.
I held an accusing eye upon my namesake and the train came to a sudden halt, much embarrassed, though the brakeman, with artistic relish, made a vast ado with his brake and pretended that "she" might start off again any minute.
My namesake poised himself on the foot that had no stone-bruise and began:-- "Now, Uncle Maje, I _told_ her she could be engineer after we got to the next station--" His tones were those of benevolence that has been ill-requited.
"_That_ was las' station," broke in the aggrieved passenger, "an' they wouldn't stop the train there 'cause they said it was a 'spress train and mustn't stop at such little stations--" "I tried awful hard to stop her," said the crafty Sullivan at the throttle, "but she got away from me.

She did _so_, now!" "And I said, 'First to be engineer,'" resumed the passenger, bitterly, "an' they wouldn't let me, an' I said, 'Secon' to be engineer,' an' they never let me, an' I said, 'Las' to be engineer,' an' they never let me." "She wants to be _everything_" said my namesake, rendered a little sullen by this concise putting of her case.
"You come with me," I said to the passenger, "and we'll do something better than this--something fine!" Her face brightened, for she knew that I never made idle promises as do so many grown-ups.

She jumped from her seat, even though the first Sullivan tooted a throaty whistle and the second rattled his brake machinery in warning.