Thomas & Friends: Workhorse of the West
Chapter 3: Tales from America
It was a beautiful day on the Island of Sodor. All the engines were busy being really useful on the Fat Controller's Railway. That morning, Maisie was pulling trucks of steel pipes for a new pipeline being built. Maisie is a mixed traffic engine from America. She can pull passengers or freight. She doesn't have a preference. Maisie enjoys her life on the rails.
"I've been to America" puffed Thomas "I hear American engines tell great stories"
"That we do, Thomas, that we do" replied Maisie with a wink "would you like to hear a story?"
"I'd love to hear a story!" Thomas beamed, Maisie smiled back and lightly chuckled
"Well, when my work is done, I'll meet you and the other engines over at Tidmouth Sheds, I'd like to tell them this one" said Maisie, and went off to bring the steel pipes to the workers at the construction site. Late that evening, Maisie went to Tidmouth Sheds. The engines were excited when Thomas told them that Maisie will tell a story from America.
"In America, we engines often tell tall tales to each other and this one comes my hometown rails, back when I was pulling goods trains and passengers in the midwest, there were tales told from workmen to engine from the steel mills of a man made out of steel from his head to his toes born from the iron rich mountains, his name was Joe Magarac"
"Bust my buffers! A man made out of steel?!" Percy puffed "he must have been really strong"
"And he was...some say he was as tall as a smokestack though that might be stretching it a bit, most claim he was about seven feet tall and can do the work of 29 men and he worked 365 days a week without resting, he would eat iron ingots like meat and drink molten steel like soup, why Big Joe can squeeze out railroad ties from between his fingers"
"The feats of 'Big Joe' were passed around by other steelworkers, many say he was the nicest fellow you'd ever want to meet, others say when they first laid eyes on Joe, they saw him come out of a blast furnace, picked up a shovel and went to work, he is a hero the workers, he once saved a group of workers from being crushed by a 50 ton crucible"
"That's amazing!" beamed Emily "I never knew there was such a man that can do that!"
"He was building railroads to Frisco and back, and from Maine down to Mexico" said Maisie
"He made the steel for the bridges and buildings that reached up to the skies" she added
"He's quite the legend among the steelworkers" said Maisie "from the Lackawanna Road to the Rock Island Line, Big Joe laid down those railroad ties and he worked all that ore in that mine on the hills, there seemed to be nothing that Big Joe Magarac just couldn't do, one day the boss at the steel mill, Steve Mastrovich, held a big weightlifting contest"
"The winner of the contest will get to marry his beautiful daughter, Mary" she added
"I'm not convinced" huffed James "how can a man be made out of steel? Pure rubbish!"
"James, it's a tall tale, the kinds of stories passed down through generations" said Maisie
"Really now, James" Emily miffed "besides I think the story's getting to the good part"
"Thank you, Emily" puffed Maisie, and sure enough the story was getting to the good part
"Now there were two other men taking part in the contest that wanted Mary's hand in marriage, Pete Pussick and Eli Stanowski, needless to say, it was barely a contest at all for Big Joe, he lifted that steel crucible with both men sitting on it with one hand, and with that, he won Mary's hand in marriage, now one will expect her to be happy...she was not"
"When Joe won that contest, Mary broke down and cried, through her tears she said that she didn't want a man who works all the time, so Joe did the honorable thing and he allowed Mary to marry the one she had her eyes set on, which was none other than Pete Pussick, whom she married in the end" said Maisie, the engines sighed a collective sigh.
"Big Joe did the right thing, what an honorable man" said Edward, Maisie lightly chuckled
"On top of that, Joe only knew how to work, he didn't know what marriage was" she added
"Come to think of it, that will be like the Duchess of Boxford marrying Spencer" said Gordon
Maisie laughed "Nice one, Gordon" she puffed with a hearty laugh "but that's not the end of the story, now there's some debate as to what happened to Joe Magarac in the end, one tale says that the steel mill that Joe worked at was to be shut down and torn down, so Joe did a brave thing...he jumped into a fiery hot steel ladle so he'll be melted down"
"When he saw that, Steve Mastrovich the Mill Boss proclaimed that 'the very best steel we got is Joe' and the steel that was Joe Magarac went into building a new steel mill on the very spot where the old mill once stood" said Maisie "and the other ending says that Joe is still alive, and that he waits at the old steel mill for the furnaces to fired up again"
"We locomotives all thank 'Big Joe' for the railroad ties we ride on everyday" Maisie concluded
"There will never be a steel man in all the world like Big Joe Magarac" she added, and sighed a happy sigh, happy that she got to tell a tale from her homeland "I know a few other tales, but those can wait for another time" Maisie said, the engines hooted and tooted as Maisie got off the turntable, and headed back to Knapford Sheds to get some rest