The Phantom Signal
John Graham, capitalist and railroad president, had the reputation of being a hard man, and for once, popular rumor was not far from right. He was a hard man. Hard in his business and hard in his home. Hard to his friends and harder to his enemies. The employees on his road called him "the old skinflint" and John Graham, hearing the term, smiled grimly and went his grasping way. The railroad needed new equipment. The tracks were bad, the roadbed was bad, and the cars were bad. Worst of all, only the most meager sort of precautions were taken for safeguarding the lives of those brought in contact with the road. A discontented, underpaid, overworked force of men slept when they should have been watching and woke to curse the close-fisted tyrant who treated them as mere inhuman cogs. There were a great many accidents on John Graham's railroad, and after each one there would be much argument as to the proper person on whom to fix the blame. Happily, a scapegoat was always found, a sleeping switchman or a drunken engineer, and the public was content, never dreaming of inquiring into the reason why the engineer was drunk or why the switchman slept. The Mills of the Gods grind slowly, and it was some time before the soul of John Graham was found waiting with the rest of the chaff for the inexorable pounding of their relentless stones. First it happened that his daughter, coming home from school, was caught in a wreck from which she only escaped at the price of her eyesight. Later, the report came to John Graham that his wife was injured in a wreck and as he sped to her assistance in his automobile, a freight train crashed into it on an unprotected crossing and John Graham was crippled for life. Helpless as he was physically, Graham still sternly refused to grant the needed improvements. Always he sat in his office with glowing, deep-set eyes and brooded over his cherished dividends. Then at length, one terrible day, the tearful pleading of his wife began to have an effect. He dreamed that the victims of his road passed before him in a pitiful procession, and looked at him with eyes of burning scorn. Their glances seared the very soul of John Graham and he suddenly saw himself as he was. His strong spirit was broken and as John Graham wept, a wonderful light shone on him in his dream, and waked him, the holy light of hope.
