by Gail Sattler
From one of the hanging pails, she selected a nice-sized roast beef that her father had purchased on his last trip to Winnipeg and quickly ran back up the stairs, outside, and back into the house where it was warm.
As she deposited the roast on the table, her mother laid an armload of clothes on one of the kitchen chairs.
“While they’re gone we can get the ironing done. Since I had to wash Elliott’s clothes while you were gone to Beauséjour, I also washed some of your papa’s things. You can start ironing, and I’ll go fix the holes in Elliott’s shirt, now that it’s dry. Plus, I also have some other mending to do.”
Louise rested the iron on the cookstove to heat it, then brought the ironing board up from the basement to begin her chore. While she ironed, she listened to her mother work the treadle of the sewing machine, which was in the dining room under the window.
She could tell the difference between ironing her father’s trousers and those belonging to Elliott. Still, she realized that even with the difference in size, Elliott’s smaller-sized clothing didn’t fit as they were meant to. She wished there were some way to send food with him. She also hoped that when he left he would take full advantage of the fine food on the dining car during his long trip to the coast. It made her heart ache to think that it wasn’t simply because he was single that he didn’t cook properly for himself. The reason he was so thin was because he couldn’t afford enough food.
“Mama,” she called out, “are you going to cook lots of extra potatoes since we have a guest?”
Her mama appeared in the doorway, Elliott’s shirt in her hand. “Yes, Louise. It breaks my heart to see him so thin. I only wish he was staying longer.”
“As do I, Mama, but to wish that way wouldn’t be fair. He does have a job to get to, and he’s been so kind to stay and help us.”
The daily track inspection didn’t take much longer than usual, and the men returned with plenty of time before dinner. However, instead of sitting in the living room as Louise expected, they both went to her father’s desk.
Elliott pulled one of the dining room chairs to the desk, positioning it so her father could have his casted leg extended. Her papa’s left leg was tucked partway under the desk, giving him access to the desktop if he leaned sideways in the chair. Louise didn’t want to think that he was as uncomfortable as he looked. The doctor had told them he would be in the cast for eight weeks, and they would be long and miserable weeks. Of that, she had no doubt—not only for her father, but likely for the rest of the family as well.
Elliott sat at the regular desk chair off to the left side, also straddling the desk on his own side. With his right leg under the desk and his left leg sticking out, he didn’t look comfortable either, but the strange position allowed both men access to the small desktop at the same time. As her father talked, Elliott made notes. They frequently stopped to read from the paper, talk about it, then continue on with her father talking and Elliott writing once again. At times, they stopped talking and writing entirely and examined other leaflets and books her father used for the railroad’s records and schedules.
Louise finished the ironing and then began preparing a cake, which would go into the oven as soon as the roast was removed, so they could have something sweet for dessert. They had decided Louise would make her favorite—a special honey cake, made from honey purchased from one of the farms in the area.
Instead of staying in one spot to iron, she now could only sneak peeks at Elliott and her father as she walked back and forth while she did her baking.
Elliott and her father continued to mull over the papers at the desk. She strained her ears to hear what they were saying, but she could hear only the muffled murmur of low male voices, since they were facing the wall as they worked. Occasionally, she could make out the odd familiar word while they discussed the daily track inspection, but yet, the conversation seemed to be more detailed than she ever remembered when she overheard her father discussing the same things with the men from the section gang or even Robert, his former lead hand.
“Louise, I think we’re going to eat in the dining room today, since we have a guest and this is the only time we’ll have the opportunity to seat the four of us together for dinner.”
Louise smiled. She could barely believe that only one day ago Elliott came into their lives as a hobo off the freight train. In that short space of time, she’d come to know him as a man of character and fine upbringing, regardless of the method of his arrival or his current situation. Also in that short space of time, he’d earned a special place in her heart, something he would never know.
Just as she entered the dining room to begin setting the table, Elliott and her father rose. Instead of going into the living room, Elliott followed her father outside. He stood on the steps and allowed her father to support himself by leaning on him as they hobbled down the steps together. Side by side, the two men made their way to the outhouse.
Her heart ached to see her father require assistance with such a simple thing as going outside and wished it didn’t have to be so. She knew what it was like to have indoor plumbing from when they visited friends and relatives in the cities. Now knowing more about where Elliott had come from, it embarrassed her to think of how primitive their lifestyle appeared to him.
More than the simple necessities, seeing her father’s difficulty with the few steps in the front of the house brought to the forefront of her mind how difficult it would be for him to climb the stairs in the house to go to his bedroom.
The more she thought about it, the more worried she became that neither she nor her mama would be able to do everything necessary for him, even the simple tasks of helping her father move around their own home.
As Louise set the dining room table, she tried to close her mind to the problems of the future. She stopped all her motions and quoted Matthew 6:34 in her head, only letting her lips move, with no sound coming out as she prayed. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”
Before she opened her eyes, she heard the clunking and banging of the men coming back up the stairs, reminding her to add a thanks to God for the blessings they had received in having Elliott with them for the past day and especially for his willingness to help. Elliott may have thought they were helping him, but so far, he had helped them more than he could ever know. She only hoped Elliott knew how much his help and presence had come to mean to them.
As soon as the door opened, her mother walked through the doorway from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron as she spoke. “Please go straight to the table. Everything is ready now.”
Louise helped her mother bring the food to the table, her father prayed over their food, and they began to eat. During the mealtime, Elliott and her father bantered back and forth good-naturedly about the track inspection, and Elliott playfully groaned out loud when her father reminded him that they would have to do the same thing the following morning, only this time, they would do it early in the morning, at the time it was supposed to be done.
Elliott first laughed at her father’s joke about being awake and ready at seven o’clock to listen to the daily schedule on Sunday morning, but then suddenly, his laughter and his smile faded.
“Wait. Are you saying that you also must do this on Sunday?”
Her father also lost his smile, and suddenly the house became very quiet except for the distant crackle of the wood in the cookstove.
“It’s necessary to inspect the track every day, including Sundays. The trains never stop running. Either a passenger train or a freight train comes through every few hours, every day, even Sunday. Therefore this is for the safety of hundreds of people who will be on the trains on Sunday. I liken it to a farmer, who must do certain tasks every day in order to keep the farm running and the animals healthy. Only that which cannot be left is done, and the rest of the day is set aside for the Lord’s Day.”
“I see.”
A silence remained over th
e table, until Elliott cleared his throat and continued.
“Unfortunately, in our modern society, there are many things that must carry on, even on Sundays. Times are changing, and after being with you for only the one inspection, I understand what you mean about things that cannot be left. You said that your worship service in Pineridge is in the afternoon. That does allow you to put aside the majority of the day for our Lord to the best of your ability. I’m sure God honors that.”
Her father nodded. “This job is one of few that gives us daily opportunities as a family to be able to help others who are less fortunate. We see homeless people every day. Even though it’s only one stop and one day in their journeys, I like to think that the good we do for them can make a difference. Without this job, the home, the good wage, even down to the wood the railroad provides for us, we couldn’t do that.”
Elliott’s cheeks darkened below his beard. “Yes. I’m a testimony to that.”
Louise remained silent, but her mother spoke up. “We’ll never know if the one thing we do for those who ask will help lead a lost soul to salvation, but we trust that this is what the Lord would have us do.”
Briefly he turned his head, making direct eye contact with Louise. She froze, her fork lifted halfway to her mouth, and stared back. His gaze remained fixed as he spoke. “Only the Lord knows what my stop here has meant to me.” He paused for a few seconds, then turned back to her mother. “You truly do have a wonderful ministry here, both for the Christian and the nonbeliever.”
Louise thought her heart might pound out of her chest. She wanted to say that she also knew that this time was special in a way she still couldn’t figure out, but she didn’t want to say anything in the presence of her parents and especially not at the dinner table.
Fortunately, the conversation continued with Elliott sharing some of his experiences while riding the freight trains. His tales were fascinating, but at the same time they drove pangs of sadness into her heart to hear of such heartbreaking testimonies. Elliott mentioned many men he’d met. Though times were difficult, they all shared an underlying thread of hope—hope that when every man arrived at his destination, wherever it might be, he would also find a job and the means to a better life.
As soon as everyone was done, before anyone left the table, Louise rose, scurried into the kitchen, and returned with the cake she’d made.
Elliott stared at it as if he’d never seen a cake in his life.
Louise smiled from ear to ear. “This is my favorite cake. I hope you like it. It’s a honey cake.”
“I don’t know what to say. I can’t remember the last time I had a piece of cake. Saying thank you doesn’t seem like enough for the way you’ve opened up your home and welcomed me like a friend.”
Regardless of the fact that her parents were there, or perhaps because of it, she allowed her fingertips to rest lightly on his arm. “We’re welcoming you as a Christian brother, as well as a friend.”
He looked up at her, and all thoughts of cutting the cake fled Louise’s mind. Not even when they helped her father at the hospital and not even when they were alone together in the car had she been so close to him. This was the first time she truly looked closely at him, and she was mesmerized. She couldn’t see most of his face because of his beard, but his eyes were beautiful—brown, flecked with green, but they held a sadness, as well as something else she couldn’t define. Mindless of all else, she continued to stare, until her father cleared his throat.
Louise blinked and tore herself away, totally ashamed of herself. She’d only kissed one man in her life, but she had at that moment been wishing her parents were elsewhere so Elliott could have kissed her now. And that was wrong.
By this time tomorrow, he would be gone. She knew he had promised to write, but writing wasn’t the same as developing a personal friendship. Despite the best of intentions, she knew that soon, when he settled into his new job and his new home, that he would faithfully write, because he had promised. Then, as tended to happen, he would write less and less often, until one day the letters would simply stop. It would perhaps take a period of time, but in the end, Elliott would be one more of the countless homeless men who passed as a shadow, never to be seen again.
The thought crushed her heart like a vice.
Louise picked up the knife, and willing her hand to stop shaking, she began to cut the cake. “Who gets the first piece?”
Seven
Elliott tried not to groan at the jangle of the alarm clock on the floor beside the couch. The ringing meant it was now a quarter to seven in the morning. He had fifteen minutes to wake up and prepare himself to take notes on the daily schedule, as John had instructed him to do.
His eyes burned from lack of sleep. He tried to rub it away, but the contact only made them water.
He sat up, but then flopped his head back and stared at the ceiling in the early morning light.
He didn’t remember it being this way the previous night, but then he’d been so exhausted he would have slept through an earthquake.
But then, an earthquake would have been quieter. Every few hours, all night long, another train rumbled past. Not only did the trains shake the house, and therefore the couch, but the noise would have awakened the dead.
Not that he was dead, though. And with thanks to the Demchuck family, he wasn’t likely to be dead soon. He hadn’t realized until he’d actually begun to travel just how dangerous riding the freight trains could be. Knowing now what he didn’t know then, the promise of a ticket was more than an answer to prayer.
Once more, he blinked hard, then stood, stretching his arms over his head, trying to wake himself. Slowly, he moved his head from side to side to work out the kinks in his neck, when he spotted the same jacket he’d worn the day before hanging over the back of the chair at the desk. He smiled and slipped it on and, as quietly as he could, made his way out the door. Indoor plumbing was nice, but the trip to the outhouse in the cold morning air would serve to wake him up like nothing else, including the all-night trains.
When the time came for him to pick up the phone and take notes, he was alert and ready. Exactly as he had been warned, the reception was poor. Every once in awhile he heard banging and other noises, probably made from the other people in their various sections along this rail line as they, too, listened and made their notes.
Out of curiosity, he continued to listen after the clerk in the faraway dispatch office in Kenora finished reading the schedule. Some of the men made reports that they needed rails replaced, and therefore required special equipment; others mentioned particular supplies they needed. One mentioned a problem with a switch, and then the clerk in Kenora confirmed that all things mentioned would be handled by the main office.
Overall, Elliott found the procedure fascinating. He couldn’t imagine the organization or the teamwork for all those section gangs to keep the line running perfect with no downtime, yet they did. He wondered if the section foremen down this line ever got together for social activities or if their association was strictly business, at precisely seven o’clock every morning, seven days a week.
Unfortunately, he would never find out. Today, after the church service, he was leaving.
The house was quiet, although he couldn’t imagine how the Demchuck family managed to sleep through the racket of the trains.
Elliott continued to sit in the chair, reading the schedule. While straining to hear, he had written as quickly as possible, not paying attention to actual content or meaning. He only wrote numbers for the sake of accuracy. Now, he could put all his notes into perspective.
It was with sadness that he read that the train he would be leaving on would be departing at half past four. He laid the paper down and counted on his fingers. Nine short hours.
He wanted to spend those nine hours with Louise, but he couldn’t. Soon John would need help down the stairs and outside. Following that, they would do the morning’s track inspection, which would take them to lunchtime. After lunch the
y would attend the Sunday worship service, and then Elliott would have less than an hour before the freight train arrived. It would stay for a short ten minutes, then depart.
Elliott suddenly froze as he found himself unconsciously stroking his beard. Now aware of what he was doing, he paid attention to what his fingers were telling him and once again touched his chin. The hair had grown soft and was no longer completely untidy, but he still didn’t like it. As a barber by trade, Elliott frequently shaved other men. By the nature of his job, it was of utmost importance that he not be in need of a shave himself and that his own hair was always well trimmed.
If he shaved, he would be properly groomed for exactly one day, because he had no means to shave again until he reached his destination. Therefore, he had no alternative but to keep the beard while he traveled. When Elliott received his first paycheck, the first thing he would buy besides clothing would be a new razor.
Still, Elliott wished Louise could see him as he really was, not as an unkempt vagrant off the freight train. After he arrived at his destination, provided the job was still available, he wondered if he could get his picture taken and enclose it with a letter, telling Louise how much he missed her.
Abruptly, Elliott stood in order to rid his mind of such foolishness. He’d only had a few hours alone with Louise and known her for under two days. He could only reason that his odd attachment was in some way related to the circumstances he now found himself in.
Under normal conditions, he would have had more time to get to know her better, perhaps even court her as she deserved to be courted. However, conditions were not normal. He had no job, no assets, and no home.
His thoughts were interrupted by voices at the top of the stairs, followed by the gentle thuds of John’s crutches and the heel of the cast echoing on the floor.
Without waiting to be asked, Elliott bounded up the stairs and removed the crutches from John’s hands. Very slowly, one stair at a time, he guided John down while John held the handrail with one hand and supported himself on Elliott’s shoulder with the other.