 | The ghost's entry and other poems |  |
JENNY'S WAY TO HONOUR
AN INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT: PANHANDLE RAILWAY, U. S. A.
Her nameless name now the wide world knows.
Have sapped the bridge with its timbers stout.
Burning, and soon it will fall, she has seen.
Its far-drawn thunder she soon must hear.
What harvest of Death if her sign be late!
The roaring train with her brown bare feet.
Flagging the flying earthquake back!
While brake and throttle obeyed his law,
Like the Terror-Signal of France, ahead.
In a blur of smoke lay the dread ravine.)
What harvest of Death were her flag too late!
With its highest tribute, the nation's meed!
With these were grateful sons of France.
In the Legion of Honour France writes her name.
A cablegram from Indianapolis, Indiana, dated May 30, states that Jenny Carey, ten years old, living with her parents at Munksford, has just received the medal of the French Legion of Honour for saving a train on the Panhandle Railway, laden with over seven hundred passengers, bound for the World's Fair at Chicago, last summer. While walking along the line, she discovered that a trestle bridge across a deep ravine was on fire, and had become impassable. She thereupon took off her red flannel petticoat, ran along the track to meet the express then nearly due, and as it came in sight waved her petticoat as a signal of danger, causing the driver to stop the train. Among the passengers were several Frenchmen, who on returning to France brought the child's remarkable action to the notice of President Carnot, with the result mentioned above.
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