The Train Stops Here

by Gail Sattler

  “Thank you, Mrs. Demchuck. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me more than words can say.”

  “And we appreciate all you’ve done for us as well. Now let’s hurry, or we’ll be late.”

  Louise ran upstairs to fetch her hat, but before she set it on her head, she ran her brush through her hair to fix it and applied a thin coat of lipstick to her lips. She’d never much cared for such things, but today she wanted to look her best.

  She waited in the living room with her mama while the men washed and changed their shirts. Even though it wasn’t far, walking down the dirt road on crutches would be too difficult for her father; so she and her mama walked to the church and Elliott drove her father with the car, since only three people could fit inside.

  “Mama, you can go join Papa and Elliott. I have to talk to Mildred for a minute.”

  Before her mother could protest, she ran off to speak to her friend, then returned as quickly as she could to be with her family.

  Rather than stand around to talk, they escorted her father up the two steps and helped him take a seat inside where he could talk to people who were curious about his cast and his accident.

  When the service began, Pastor Galbraith welcomed all present. He extended a special welcome to her father for coming in spite of the cast and then reviewed the community announcements.

  Mildred walked to the organ, and the congregation stood.

  “Louise,” her mother whispered in her ear, “why is Mildred playing the organ?”

  Louise turned to whisper back. “I asked her to trade with me. I wanted to sit in the congregation today.”

  Her mother’s one raised eyebrow told her that she knew it was a specific visitor in the congregation with whom she wanted to sit. Ignoring her mother’s telltale smirk, Louise flipped through the hymnal to the correct page and began to sing with the congregation.

  She nearly choked on her words when Elliott began to sing beside her. Not only did he sing in a lovely baritone, but he sang in perfect flowing harmony for every song. The rich blend of his voice, combined with the deep bass of Mr. Sabinski, the only other man in the congregation who could also sing a harmony, profoundly affected everyone present during the time they worshiped the Lord with their songs.

  Elliott sat with rapt attention for the entire length of the sermon and mumbled an enthusiastic “amen” each time Pastor Galbraith made a good point.

  After the close of the service, many people approached them to talk, first, because having a visitor to their small congregation in the country was rare, but mostly, Louise suspected, it was because Elliott’s fine singing had created a stir.

  Mildred was the first person to approach him. “Was that you singing like that? Praise the Lord for your lovely voice!”

  In the bright sunlight, Louise could see the color of Elliott’s checks darken, even beneath the beard.

  “I love to sing, especially for the Lord on Sunday.”

  “I hope your home church has a choir, and that you are in it.”

  “Yes, I am. I’m also a member of a barbershop quartet, which is a lot of fun. Actually, I get teased a lot about that, because I really am a barber.”

  He smiled fully, showing a beautiful set of teeth, in addition to his beautiful smile. It made Louise long to see that same smile more often, but she felt the minutes ticking away, reminding her that their time together was running out.

  As much as she didn’t want him to go, she didn’t want him to miss the train, either. “Elliott, you stay here with my friends. I’m going to find Papa and see if he’s ready to go. I’ll tell him you’ll be at the car shortly, but I know it will take him longer to get there than you.”

  His answering smile made her foolish heart flutter. Before he noticed that she was acting strange, Louise walked away, in search of her parents.

  Since she didn’t see them outside talking to anyone, Louise walked back into the church. Not finding them there either, she stood still and crossed her arms, wondering where they could have gone. Then, she heard what sounded like her father’s voice coming from the doorway leading to the Sunday school classroom.

  Because she was in the Lord’s house, Louise didn’t call out to them. Instead she approached them, meaning to speak to them at a respectful volume.

  Her feet skidded to a halt on the polished wood floor when she heard her father mention Elliott’s name.

  “John! Are you serious?” she heard her mother whisper to her father. Even though she couldn’t see her mother’s face, Louise well imagined her expression. Surely she would be standing with her arms crossed and her head tilted to one side. Any second, Louise expected to hear the tapping of her mother’s shoe on the hard floor.

  Her papa replied, his voice also hushed. “I know what you’re thinking, Anna, but listen to me. I know he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I’m not sure that he’s very mechanically minded, but you should have seen him out there. He has a real eye for detail. More so, he’s humble, and he’s teachable. He’s young, but he’s an honorable man, and that combination makes him more suitable than anyone could ever be.”

  “Do you know what you’re asking him to do?”

  “I’m not asking him to turn down the other job. He told me that he doesn’t have a specific starting date; his friend’s letter said whenever he got there. I want to ask him if he could get in touch with his friend and ask if the job would still be his in eight weeks. If he has to go, I’ll certainly understand, but I really believe the Lord has placed Elliott in our path at this time for a reason.”

  “I don’t know, John.”

  “I’ve prayed about it, and I have my answer. It’s up to Elliott now.”

  “You’d better ask him quickly, then. Doesn’t the train leave soon? You’re not giving him much time to think about it. This is a big decision for him. And what about Louise?”

  “What about her? I don’t think it will be that much more work for her if we have to feed an extra person for a couple of months.”

  “You don’t understand. Louise has taken a shine to him. And rightly so—he seems to be a fine young man. But this presents a problem.”

  “How so? I believe that he feels the same way about her, so why would that be a bad thing?”

  “As her parents, we must make sure they aren’t left open to temptation. But more than that. What about when he leaves? She’s my daughter, and I don’t want her to be hurt.”

  “Anna, she’s not a little girl. She’s nearly twenty years old, old enough to be married. Nothing will happen if she knows he’ll be leaving again.”

  “I don’t know. . . .”

  “She’s a sensible girl, and you said it yourself; Elliott is an honorable young man. Come on. We have to find him so I can take him aside and talk.”

  Louise didn’t need to hear anymore. As fast as her feet would go without taking the chance of making noise on the hardwood floor, she hurried across the room. Once outside, she ran the rest of the way.

  She found Elliott alone, leaning against the flagpole. He straightened as soon as he saw her coming.

  “There you are. I was wondering where you went and what was taking you so long. I wanted to talk to you about something privately.”

  Louise’s throat tightened. She didn’t know what to think. Of course, she would have loved him to stay so she could get to know him better, but if that meant risking his job, then such thinking was selfish. “There’s something I have to tell you, too.”

  “Please, let me go first; this is difficult. I’ll be leaving soon, and this is my last chance.”

  “But—”

  He held up his palms to silence her. “No, please, let me finish. This is difficult. I know I’ve said I would write, but I should have asked you first if you would like to exchange letters with me, rather than expecting you would want to. For my lack of manners, I apologize.”

  “Elliott, listen to me.” Quickly, she turned her head from side to side to make sure her parents hadn’t caught up to he
r yet. “We may not be exchanging letters.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I should have realized there was already someone else in your heart. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Hush, Elliott,” she whispered and reached forward to touch his sleeve, halting him in his tracks. “It’s not that. I heard Mama and Papa talking. Papa is going to ask if you’ll stay here and be his lead hand until he’s out of the cast and back to work.”

  “Lead hand? But I know nothing of maintaining the track other than what little your father told me over the last two days.”

  Louise nodded so fast her hat wobbled on her head. She reached up with her free hand to straighten it and kept talking. “I know. I’m only repeating what I heard. He trusts you.”

  “Well. . .I’m honored. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Of course, he knows you have another job, but he says from the sound of it, you don’t have a specific start date.”

  “I’m not entirely sure of that until either I get there to speak to Edward or somehow find a way to get a letter to him.”

  She glanced behind her to see her parents advancing slowly.

  “I probably shouldn’t have told you, but I couldn’t help myself.”

  One side of his mouth quirked up. “I’m glad you did. Today while we were out, your father asked me some rather strange questions. I thought I had done something wrong, yet he assured me that wasn’t the case. It all makes sense now.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “There’s only one thing I can do. I have to think about it and pray. But I suppose I shouldn’t do that until your father talks to me and gives me all the details and tells me all my options.”

  Once again, Elliott got the car to drive her father the short distance home, leaving Louise to walk with her mother.

  “Let’s walk slowly. Your father has something to talk to Elliott about, and they may be awhile.”

  Louise inhaled deeply, then let all the air out in a whoosh. She couldn’t look at her mother as she spoke. “I know. I’m sorry, Mama, but I heard you and Papa talking.”

  “Did you tell Elliott?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. You’ve never been good at keeping secrets. I suppose it’s foolish of me to expect that you could start now.”

  Louise didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

  When they arrived at the house, instead of joining the men in the living room, they went in through the back door and immediately started making preparations for dinner. Louise brought a roast pork out of the outdoor cellar, and they peeled potatoes to tuck inside the roaster before it went into the oven.

  Although she could hear the murmur of their voices, Louise couldn’t hear their actual words from where she was. After a rather lengthy conversation, a long silence followed. Louise suspected that they were praying for wisdom for Elliott’s decision.

  Even though he’d met with hard times, Elliott Endicott truly was an honorable and godly man. One day, he would make some lucky woman a wonderful husband.

  She nearly dropped the potato onto the floor, startled with pangs of jealousy for a woman who so far didn’t exist.

  Louise and her mother continued to make dinner, not knowing if Elliott would be staying or leaving with the passenger train that was due shortly. Louise didn’t want to think about it, so she struggled to think of other things while she did the worst job she’d ever done of slicing carrots.

  The carrot she’d been peeling dropped to the floor when her father and Elliott entered the kitchen.

  “Anna, Louise. I hope you’re setting a fourth plate at the table. Elliott has agreed to be my lead hand for eight weeks.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Louise and her mother said in unison.

  Louise wanted to run to Elliott and throw her arms around him but couldn’t do so in front of her parents, especially after what she’d heard them discussing about watching her interaction with Elliott during the time he was there.

  “We’re going to name his position officially as lead hand, but really his duties will be mine, and he will act as substitute section foreman. For at least the first few weeks, after the daytime work with the section men is done, I’ll have to teach Elliott the rest of the job in the evenings, since that is the only way he can be properly trained. Because of that, he can’t be staying in the bunkhouse with the section men. We’ve decided that he’s going to continue sleeping here on the couch. This way he can take the scheduling call every morning at seven, as well and he’ll be here for me when I need help.”

  Louise clasped her hands together. “I’m so glad, Elliott! And that means you’ll be making a good salary, too.”

  “Until he gets his first paycheck, he’s going to borrow whatever of mine he needs. Anna, you’re going to have to help him, since I can’t. In fact, I think I’m going to go lie down on the couch until dinner is ready.”

  Louise stood in silence as her father hobbled into the living room.

  Her mother wiped her hands on her apron as she spoke. “I’m going to enjoy having you here, Elliott. I can show you where everything is now that dinner is cooking and Louise is doing the vegetables. What’s the first thing you want to see?”

  Elliott ran his hand over his chin and smiled from ear to ear. “A razor.”

  Nine

  Louise didn’t know which was less proper, to go into the living room where her father was trying to sleep or to stay in the kitchen and work with her mother while Elliott shaved.

  She’d occasionally been in the kitchen when her father had shaved but only when it couldn’t be avoided. Besides, her father was family, which allowed them to bend the rules of propriety somewhat.

  Elliott wasn’t family. He could have been loosely considered family as a Christian brother, but already in her heart, he was much more than that. She’d become quite fond of him, but that didn’t mean she wanted to watch him shave. It would almost be like. . .Elliott watching her pluck her eyebrows.

  As nice as the houses were that the railroad provided to the families of the section foremen, their house was small. Besides the living and dining rooms or the kitchen, her only option would be to go upstairs to her bedroom where she had nothing to do. She couldn’t do that, because she had plenty of work in the kitchen helping her mother prepare dinner. She still had to finish preparing the carrots and potatoes, and they still hadn’t finished cleaning up the extra mess from making the donuts.

  Mostly, going up to her bedroom would be cowardly.

  She finished peeling and slicing the carrots while Elliott pumped some water into the kettle and placed it on the cookstove.

  As he continued to gather up the shaving supplies, Louise couldn’t help but watch him out of the corner of her eye. She wondered if a professional barber would shave differently than her father.

  He leaned close to the mirror and ran his fingers through the beard. “May I trouble you for some scissors? My whiskers are too long for the razor.”

  Her mother left the room and returned with her sewing scissors, which Louise knew were the best scissors in the house. He stared at them as her mother placed them in his palm.

  “I know they’re not like the barber scissors you’re used to, but that’s what I use to cut John’s hair.”

  Louise bit her lip when she saw the slight movement of Elliott cringing. Her mother returned to the cookstove, and without speaking, Elliott leaned close to the mirror and snipped away as much length as he could. He then laid the scissors on the table beside the basin and poured a little water into the shaving mug, whipped up the soap into a fluffy lather, and set it aside.

  He smiled as he pulled the blade of her father’s razor out of its slot in the handle, then gently ran his thumb along the cutting edge. “I suspect this will have to be sharpened when I’m done. Do you know where John keeps his strop?”

  “If it’s not there, then I’m not sure. I’ll ask him later.”

  From where she stood, even though his back was to
her, Louise could see his face in the mirror. She watched as Elliott patted his face with warm water, then brushed on a thick layer of lather. Slowly, and in small sections, he scraped the razor along his cheeks and under his chin, but she couldn’t watch as he shaved under his nose.

  When he was done, he bent at the waist and rinsed his face with the water in the basin, then stood as he patted his cheeks dry with the towel.

  Just as he was about to remove the towel from his face, their gazes met in the mirror. Elliott froze, his eyes widened, and Louise couldn’t force herself to look away. Almost in slow motion, he turned, not lowering the towel from his face.

  When he spoke, not only was his voice muffled from speaking through the towel, but there was also a husky quality Louise had not heard before.

  “I don’t want you to be disappointed, but nothing is going to change me now. This is what I really look like.”

  Slowly, he lowered the towel from his face. Instead of his smile being warm and friendly, it looked like he was trying too hard to smile for a photograph.

  His eyes were the same, but everything else seemed different. Even his nose without the mustache beneath it seemed somehow changed, and his hair appeared lighter than before, although that didn’t make sense.

  While she wouldn’t have called him handsome, he was by no means ugly. Without the beard, all his features seemed thinner. His cheekbones were more prominent and his nose seemed longer. His forced smile showed thin lines beside his mouth, although she suspected they would fill out after her mother’s good cooking put more meat on his bones.

  She’d never paid notice to a man’s chin before, but even with his thin features, he had a strong jawline. Though it was forced, he had a lovely smile without all the dark hair surrounding his mouth.

  Louise grasped both sides of her skirt, smiled, and curtsied. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Endicott. Although I’m sure we’ve met before.”