The train had arrived,
leaving its passenger coach and baggage car standing on the main track
at the north end of the station platform, the pin between the baggage
and the first box car having been pulled out. There were about a dozen
freight cars, which had pulled ahead and backed in upon the
freight-house siding. The train men had taken out a box car and pushed
it with force enough to reach the baggage car without a brakeman
controlling it.
"'At this moment Al turned and saw little Jimmy on the main track,
throwing pebbles over his head in the sunshine, all unconscious of
danger. Dashing his papers and cap on the platform he plunged to the
rescue.
"'The train baggage man was the only eyewitness. He told me that when he
saw Al jump toward Jimmy he thought sure both boys would be crushed.
Seizing Jimmy in his arms just as the box car was about to strike them,
young Edison threw himself off the track. There wasn't a tenth of a
second to lose. By this instinctive act he saved his own life, for if he
had thrown the little chap first and then himself, he would have been
crushed under the wheels.
"'As it was, the front wheel struck the heel of the newsboy's boot and
he and Jimmy fell, face downward on the sharp, fresh-gravel ballast so
hard that they were both bleeding and the baggage man thought sure the
wheel had gone over them. To his surprise their injuries proved to be
only skin deep.
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