gloved hand of cunning—you, there, old bristle-crops!—Tom Wilson, H. F. Cline, or T. J. Johnson—whatever the hell your name is—
CASEY JONES! Open the throttle, boy, and let her rip! Boys, I’m a belly-busting bastard from the State of old Catawba—a rootin’tootin’shootin’son-of-a-bitch from Saw Tooth Gap in Buncombe—why, God help this lovely bastard of a train—it is the best damned train that ever turned a wheel since Casey Jones’s father was a pup—why, you sweet bastard, run! Eat up Virginia!—Give her the throttle, you old goggle-eyed son-of-a-bitch up there!—Pour it to her! Let’er have it, you nigger-Baptist bastard of a shovelling fireman—let’er rip!—Wow! By God, we’ll be in Washington for breakfast!
—Why, God bless this lovely bastard of a train! It is the best damned train that ever pulled a car since Grant took Richmond!—Which way does the damn thing go?—Pennsylvania?—Well, that’s all right! Don’t you say a word against Pennsylvania! My father came from Pennsylvania, boys, he was the best damned man that ever lived—He was a stone-cutter and he’s better than any son-of-a-bitch of a plumber you ever saw—He’s got a cancer and six doctors and they can’t kill him!—But to hell with going where we go!—We’re out to see the world, boy!—To hell with Baltimore, New York, Boston! Run her off the God-damn rails! We’re going West! Run her through the woods—cross fields—rivers, through the hills! Hell’s pecker! But I’ll shove her up the grade and through the gap, no double-header needed!—Let’s see the world now! Through Nebraska, boy! Let’s shove her through, now, you can do it!—Let’s run her through Ohio, Kansas, and the unknown plains! Come on, you hogger, let’s see the great plains and the fields of wheat—Stop off in Dakota, Minnesota, and the fertile places—Give us a minute while you breathe to put our foot upon it, to feel it spring back with the deep elastic feeling, 8, 000 miles below, unrolled and lavish, depthless, different from the East.
Now Virginia lay dreaming in the moonlight! And on Florida’s bright waters the fair and lovely daughters of the Wilsons and the Potters; the Cabots and the Lowells; the Weisbergs and O’Hares; the Astors and the Goulds; the Ransoms and the Rands; the Westalls and the Pattons and the Webbs; the Reynolds and McRaes; the Spanglers and the Beams; the Gudgers and the Blakes; the Pedersons and Craigs—all the lovely daughters, the Robinsons and Waters, the millionaires’sweet daughters, the Boston maids, the Beacon Slades, the Back Bay Wades, all
