Seventy-five miles south of Chicago there is a whistle-stop called
Shipmont. (No ship has ever been anywhere near it; neither has a
mountain.) It lives because of a small college; the college, in turn,
owes its maintenance to an installation of great interest to the Atomic
Energy Commission.
Shipmont is served by two trains a day--which stop only when there
is a passenger to get on or off, which isn't often. These passengers,
generally speaking, are oddballs carrying attaché cases or eager young
men carrying miniature slide rules.
But on this day came a woman and a little girl.
Their total visible possessions were two battered suitcases and one
battered trunk. The little girl was neatly dressed, in often-washed and
mended clothing; she carried a small covered basket, and there were
breadcrumbs visible on the lid. She looked bewildered, shy and
frightened. She was.
The mother was thirty, though there were lines of worry on her forehead
and around her eyes that made her look older. She wore little makeup and
her clothing had been bought for wear instead of for looks. She looked
around, leaned absently down to pat the little girl and straightened as
the station-master came slowly out.
"Need anything, ma'am?" He was pleasant enough. Janet Bagley appreciated
that; life had not been entirely pleasant for her for some years.
"I need a taxicab, if there is one."
"There is. I run it after the train gets in for them as ain't met. You're
not goin' to the college?" He pronounced it "collitch."
Janet Bagley shook her head and took a piece of paper from her bag. "Mr.
Charles Maxwell, Rural Route Fifty-three, Martin's Hill Road," she read.
Her daughter began to whimper.
The station-master frowned. "Hum," he said, "that's the Herm--er, d'you
know him?"