I ran down and grasped it.

It was all right.

Need I add that it never passed out of my firm grasp again until it was safe in Pittsburgh?
The engineer and fireman were the only persons who knew of my carelessness, and I had their assurance that it would not be told.
It was long after the event that I ventured to tell the story.

Suppose that package had fallen just a few feet farther away and been swept down by the stream, how many years of faithful service would it have required upon my part to wipe out the effect of that one piece of carelessness! I could no longer have enjoyed the confidence of those whose confidence was essential to success had fortune not favored me.
I have never since believed in being too hard on a young man, even if he does commit a dreadful mistake or two; and I have always tried in judging such to remember the difference it would have made in my own career but for an accident which restored to me that lost package at the edge of the stream a few miles from Hollidaysburg.

I could go straight to the very spot to-day, and often as I passed over that line afterwards I never failed to see that light-brown package lying upon the bank.