RAILROADMAN—Chauncey Del French — Macmillan ($2.50).
Henry Clay French was an orphan who got a job as callboy on the Hannibal & St. Joe Railroad in Kansas City back in 1873. Learning telegraphy in his spare time, he was a full-fledged operator at 14, a combined telegrapher and brakeman on the Santa Fe three years later. For the next 50 years he was shunted from line to line like a boxcar in a busy season. He saw hard living in Kansas cow towns, hard drinking at Northwest division points, hard work everywhere. Last week his...