“Okay. Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll see you really soon,” Joe teased and moved off to buy his train ticket at the other window.
The window shade was up but the chair was empty. Joe stood there, looking into the room behind the counter, waiting for someone to come and attend to him.
Moments later, the same clerk from the post office sat in the chair in front of him and stared at him.
“How can I help you, sir?”
Joe blinked at him, stunned into near silence. Then he had to suppress valiantly the urge to bust out laughing.
“Aren’t you…aren’t you…” he swallowed his laughter. “I need a ticket to come here from South Carolina and I need to send it there for a woman to come here with it.”
The clerk nodded. “I can give you the price and let you purchase the ticket, but you will have to send it by taking it over to the postal office and letting them deal with that.”
“Won’t you…” After a moment, he stopped. It was going to be the same clerk.
He wasn’t going to laugh. He just wasn’t.
****
Chapter Four
Minnie’s heart was in her throat. She gripped Billy’s hand so hard, he was starting to fuss. “Mama, you’re hurting me!” He kept whining and she would loosen her grip.
“I’m sorry, baby.” She kept soothing him. She pulled him up on her lap and held him so he could see out of the window. “Look. Do you see all that passing scenery? You see that tree…oh, there’s it’s gone, isn’t it?” She smiled, wrapping her arms around his tiny body as he leaned toward the window.
“Look, mama, look!” The baby slid from her grasp to climb onto the bench next to her and stand there, his small hands gripping the short windowsill and pressing his nose against the glass. “Look, mama!”
“I see it, Billy boy, I see it.” She tried to make her voice as soft as possible to counteract his loudness. She reached out and steadied him on the chair. “Don’t fall now. You don’t want to get hurt, do you?”
“No, no. No no.” Billy shook his head in response but didn’t turn his head away from the window. He just pulled back a little and rested in the comfort of his mother’s secure hold. “It’s a tree!” He surged forward, almost jumping out of her grasp and she snatched him back.
“Now Billy, I just told you to be careful! You’re going to fall and bump your head!” She pulled him back so he had to sit on her lap. Restless, he squirmed and tried to get back to the window, off his mother’s lap. “Billy, you must calm down!” Minnie felt her nerves beginning to frazzle. Billy was just being his normal self and he was a very active little boy. What if Joe was unable to accept a mischievous little boy like him?
“He’ll have to,” she whispered. “It’s both of us, not just me.” But she felt guilty anyway because she hadn’t mentioned Billy to Joe and wasn’t in the least bit secure he would accept the child. She wished suddenly that her little boy wasn’t so active.
Just as quickly, she berated herself for thinking that way. There was nothing wrong with an active two year old and, in fact, she dared to say that it was good for Billy in particular to be the way he was. He was a spark of life. He was curious and determined and stubborn. Most of the men she knew were like that and they were much older than two. Billy was usually a good little boy. And he was that day, too. He was being himself.
“Come and sit still, Billy,” she whispered frantically. “You will annoy our other passengers.”
“Don’t you worry, dear.” An older woman in the front of the carriage turned to glance back at her. “Don’t you worry about that boy, sweet girl. I will help you care for this little one.”
Minnie nervously looked around the car of the train at the young men that surrounded her.
“And don’t you worry about these boys, Minnie. They don’t make a move without asking me first. They are wonderful singers. When I want something done, I ask my grandsons and my nephew. They won’t judge you or do anything to make you feel bad. So if your little boy needs to play, you let him go ahead and play. And these boys will listen to me, won’t you, boys?”
“Yes, gramma.” They all answered in synch. Then one of the boys leaned forward directly in the path of Jon’s wandering eyes and smiled wide. His teeth were incredibly white and Minnie wondered how he managed to do that. She wished her teeth could be nearly as clean and white.
Must be natural. She thought.
“I am upset because my husband was killed in the war and I am being forced to move across the country to start a new life. I’m afraid of the new life I’m going to.”