Read Ebook: Forty Minutes Late 1909 by Smith Francis Hopkinson

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Ebook has 121 lines and 8193 words, and 3 pages

FORTY MINUTES LATE

It began to snow half an hour after the train started--a fine-grained, slanting, determined snow that forced its way between the bellows of the vestibules, and deposited itself in mounds of powdered salt all over the platforms and steps. Even the porter had caught some puffs on his depot coat with the red cape, and so had the conductor, from the way he thrashed his cap on the back of the seat in front of mine. "Yes, gettin' worse," he said in answer to an inquiring lift of my eyebrows. "Everything will be balled up if this keeps on."

"Shall we make the connection at Bondville?" I was to lecture fifty miles from Bondville Junction, and had but half an hour lee-way.

If the man with the punch heard, he made no answer. The least said the soonest mended in crises like this. If we arrived on time every passenger would grab his bag and bolt out without thanking him or the road, or the engineer who took the full blast of the storm on his chest and cheeks. If we missed the connection, any former hopeful word would only add another hot coal to everybody's anger.

I fell back on the porter.

"Yes' sir, she'll be layin' jes' 'cross de platform. She knows we're comin'. Sometimes she waits ten minutes--sometimes she don't; more times I seen her pullin' out while we was pullin' in."

Not very reassuring this. Only one statement was of value--the position of the connecting train when we rolled into Bondville.

I formulated a plan: The porter would take one bag, I the other--we would both stand on the lower step of the Pullman, then make a dash. If she was pulling out as we pulled in, a goatlike spring on my part might succeed; the bags being hurled after me to speed the animal's motion.

One hour later we took up our position.

"Dat's good!--Dar she is jes' movin' out: thank ye, sar. I got de bag--dis way!"

There came a jolt, a Saturday-afternoon slide across the ice-covered platform, an outstretched greasy hand held down from the step of the moving train, followed by the chug of a bag that missed my knees by a hand's breadth--and I was hauled on board.

The contrast between a warm, velvet-lined Pullman and a cane-seated car with both doors opened every ten minutes was anything but agreeable; but no discomfort should count when a lecturer is trying to make his connection. That is what he is paid for and that he must do at all hazards and at any cost, even to chartering a special train, the price devouring his fee.

Once in my seat an account of stock was taken--two bags, an umbrella, overcoat, two gum shoes , manuscript of lecture in bag, eye-glasses in outside pocket of waistcoat. This over, I spread myself upon the cane seat and took in the situation. It was four o'clock ; Sheffield was two hours away; this would give time to change my dress and get something to eat. The committee, moreover, were to meet me at the depot with a carriage and drive me to where I was "to spend the night and dine"--so the chairman's letter read. The suppressed smile on the second conductor's face when he punched my ticket and read the name of "Sheffield" sent my hand into my pocket in search of this same letter. Yes--there was no mistake about it,--"Our carriage," it read, "will meet you," etc., etc.

The confirmation brought with it a certain thrill; not a carriage picked up out of the street, or a lumbering omnibus--a mere go-between from station to hotels--but "our carriage!" Nothing like these lecture associations, I thought,--nothing like these committees, for making strangers comfortable. That was why it was often a real pleasure to appear before them. This one would, no doubt, receive me in a big yellow and white Colonial club-house built by the women of the town , with dressing and lunch rooms, spacious lecture hall, and janitor in gray edged with black.

This thought called up my own responsibility in the matter; I was glad I had caught the train; it was a bad night to bring people out and then disappoint them, even if most of them did come in their own carriages. Then again, I had kept my word; none of my fault, of course, if I hadn't--but I had!--that was a source of satisfaction. Now that I thought of it, I had, in all my twenty years of lecturing, failed only twice to reach the platform. In one instance a bridge was washed away, and in the other my special train ran into a snowdrift and stayed there until after midnight, instead of delivering me on time, as agreed. I had arrived late, of course, many times, gone without my supper often, and more than once had appeared without the proper habiliments--and I am particular about my dress coat and white waistcoat--but only twice had the gas been turned off and the people turned out. Another time I had--

"Sheffield! Shef-fie-l-d! All out for Shef-f-i-e-l-d!" yelled the conductor.

The two bags once more, the conductor helping me on with my overcoat, down the snow-blocked steps and out into the night.

"Step lively!--more'n an hour late now."

I looked about me. I was the only passenger. Not a light of any kind--not a building of any kind, sort, or description, except a box-car of a station set up on end, pitch dark inside and out, and shut tight. No carriage. No omnibus; nothing on runners; nothing on wheels. Only a dreary waste of white, roofed by a vast expanse of black.

"Is this Sheffield?" I gasped.

"Yes,--all there is here; the balance is two miles over the hills."

"The town?"

"Town?--no, the settlement;--ain't more's two dozen houses in it."

"They were to send a carriage and--"

"Yes--that's an old yarn--better foot it for short." Here he swung his lantern to the engineer craning his head from the cab of the locomotive, and sprang aboard. Then this fragment came whirling through the steam and smoke:--"There's a farmhouse somewhere's over the hill,--follow the fence and turn to--" the rest was lost in the roar of the on-speeding train.

I am no longer young. Furthermore, I hate to carry things--bags especially. One bag might be possible--a very small one; two bags, both big, are an insult.

I deposited the two outside the box-car, tried the doors, inserted my fingers under the sash of one window, looked at the chimney with a half-formed Santa Claus idea of scaling the roof and sliding down to some possible fireplace below; examined the wind-swept snow for carriage tracks, peered into the gloom, and, as a last resort, leaned up against the sheltered side of the box to think.

The bags were the most serious obstacles. If I carried one in each hand the umbrella would have to be cached, for some future relief expedition to find in the spring.

The only thing was to press on. Some one had blundered, of course.

"Half a league, half a league--into the jaws," etc.

"Theirs not to reason why--" But my duty was plain; the audience were already assembling; the early ones in their seats by this time.

Then an inspiration surged through me. Why not slip the umbrella through the handle of one bag, as Pat carries his shillalah and bundle of duds, and grab the other in my free hand! Our carriage couldn't be far off. The exercise would keep my blood active and my feet from freezing, and as to the road, was there not the fence, its top rail making rabbit jumps above the drifts?

So I trudged on, stumbling into holes, flopping into treacherous ruts, halting in the steeper places to catch my breath, till I reached the top of the hill. There I halted--stopped short, in fact: the fence had given out! In its place was a treacherous line of bushes that faded into a delusive clump of trees. Beyond, and on both sides, stretched a great white silence--still as death.

Another council of war. I could retrace my steps, smash in the windows of the station, and camp for the night, taking my chances of stopping some east-bound train as it whizzed past, with a match and my necktie--or I could stumble on, perhaps in a circle, and be found in the morning by the early milk.

On! On once more--maybe the clump of trees hid something--maybe--

Here a light flashed--a mere speck of a light--not to the right, where lay the clump of trees--but to my left; then a faint wave of warm color rose from a chimney and curled over a low roof buried in snow. Again the light flashed--this time through a window with four panes of glass--each one a beacon to a storm-tossed mariner!

On once more--into a low hollow--up a steep slope--slipping, falling, shoving the hand-gripped bag ahead of me to help my footing, until I reached a snow-choked porch and a closed door.

Here I knocked.

For some seconds there was no sound; then came a heavy tread, and a man in overalls threw wide the door.

"Well, what do you want at this time of night?"

"I'm the lecturer," I panted.

"Oh, come! Ain't they sent for ye? Here, I'll take 'em. Walk in and welcome. You look beat out. Well--well--wife and I was won-derin' why nothin' driv past for the six-ten. We knowed you was comin'. Then agin, the station master's sick, and I 'spose ye couldn't warm up none. And they ain't sent for ye? And they let ye tramp all--Well--well!"

I did not answer. I hadn't breath enough left for sustained conversation; moreover, there was a red-hot stove ahead of me, and a rocking-chair,--comforts I had never expected to see again--and there was a pine table--oh, a lovely pine table, with a most exquisite white oil-cloth cover, holding the most beautiful kerosene lamp with a piece of glorious red flannel floating in its amber fluid; and in the corner--a wife--a sweet-faced, angelic-looking young wife, with a baby in her arms too beautiful for words--must have been!

I dropped into the chair, spread my fingers to the stove and looked around--warmth--rest-peace--comfort--companionship--all in a minute!

"No, they didn't send anything," I wheezed when my breath came. "The conductor told me I should find the farmhouse over the hill--and--"

"Yes, that's so; it's back a piece, you must have missed it."

"Yes--I must have missed it," I continued in a dazed way.

"The folks at the farmhouse is goin' to hear ye speak, so they told me. Must be startin' now."

"Would you please let them know I am here, and--"

"Sure! Wait till I get on my boots! Hello!--that's him now."

Again the door swung wide. This time it let in a fur overcoat, coon-skin cap, two gray yarn mittens, a pair of raw-beefsteak cheeks and a voice like a fog-horn.

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