Homeburg Memories | Page 4

you hurl a few good-bys at the travelers getting
on. Our two editors check them off as they go. The Argus and the
Democrat get all their news at this train. There's no slipping in and out
of town in Homeburg. One and all we face the gantlet. Young Andy
Lowes hates to have us beg him not to miss the morning train back, as
we do three times a week; but he simply has to go to Jonesville that
often, and we all know why, and he knows we know. The Parsons are
rid of their Aunt Mary at last. She's worse than an oyster. Put her in a

guest-room and she grows fast to it. They've had her for six months
now. Hello! Peter Link's son is going down to Jonesville. Guess he's
got his job back. Andy would be a good boy if he would only stop
trying to make the distilleries work nights. There goes old Colonel
Ackley on his weekly trip. Wonder if he thinks he fools any one with
that suit case. Ever since the town went dry, he's had business in the
next county. Hello, Colonel! Don't drop that case. You'll break a suit of
clothes! Watch him glare.
The engine has gotten its breath by this time. Ever notice how human
an engine sounds when it stops after a long run and the air-brake
apparatus begins to pant? Old Ball has been fussing for a minute and
now he yells "'Board." Aunt Emma Newcomb gets in a few more kisses
all around her family. She's going down to the next station. The engine
gives a few loud puffs, spins its wheels a few times, and the cars begin
moving past. Hurrah! Something doing to-day. That grocery salesman
who gets here once a week is coming across the square two jumps to a
rod. Go it, old man! Go it, train! Ball will always stop for a woman, but
the drummers have to take her on the fly. There! He's on--all but his hat.
Red Nolan will keep that for him till his next trip.
She's moving fast now. The brakeman hops the next to the last car with
grace and carelessness. From every platform devoted friends and
relatives are spilling--it is a point of honor in Homeburg to remain with
your loved ones in the car as long as you dare before leaping for life.
The last car sweeps by. The red and green lights begin to grow smaller
with businesslike promptness. There is a parting clatter as the train hits
the last switch frog two blocks away. Then it's over. The noise, bustle,
confusion, and joyful excitement follow the flying cinders out of town,
and silence resumes its reign. I've never heard anything so still as
Homeburg after the 4:11 has pulled out.
But we're too busy to notice it as we string across the square to the
post-office. We have the day's cargo to digest. We have to wait for the
evening mail to be distributed, read the evening newspapers, shake
hands with all the returned Homeburgers, size up the brand new
Homeburgers and investigate the strangers. And it keeps us busy until

supper time.
I've lived in Homeburg thirty-five years and more, and the 4:11 train
has been tangled up in my biography all the way. I remember the first
time I ever rode on it. The cars were funny-looking coops then, and the
engine had a sixty-gallon smokestack. I was four, and I yelled with fear
when the train came in and kept it up for the first twenty miles after
they lugged me on board. The conductor chucked me under the chin
and gave me his punch to play with. He was a young man then. He'd
carried my father and mother on their wedding journey, and twenty
years after that first ride of mine he carried me and my wife on our
wedding journey. The other day we gave our oldest girl two dollars and
sent her on her first trip down to Jonesville, by herself. Old Ball was on
the train, and he grinned at me and promised to take good care of her.
He's pretty gray now, but I hope he stays long enough to start another
generation of our family on its travels.
I went to my first circus, to Jonesville, on old Number Eleven. And I
went down there at sixteen, a member of the Republican Club, with a
torch, and the proudest boy in the State. The next year I started to
college with an algebra and a tennis racket under my arm (they
wouldn't jam into the trunk), and a dozen friends came down to see me
off. On Number Eleven that day I met four other boys going to the
same