Just in the grey of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadow,
There was a stir and a sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth;
Clanging and clicking of arms, and the order imperative, "Forward!"
--LONGFELLOW.
I do not see why the march of improvement should tread down sentiment
and tread out romance; but such seems to be the fact. Beauty and
feeling, like very birds of the wildwood, take wing and flee at the
shriek of the steam-whistle. Your public conveyance is no longer a
kindly, easy-going personality, the "Highflyer" or the "Dashaway"
mail-coach; it is only the 6.30 train. You could turn and wave a
good-bye, in the olden time; gazing back at the dear home outlines
until, in the pathetic words of David Copperfield, "the sky was empty."
But now, even if the railway does not graze your front dooryard, and
you must walk or drive to the station, yet you hardly dare glance round
you as you go, lest you should miss the train. For that distant dark
line with its trail of silver smoke, which comes snaking along across
the country, makes no account of you as an individual, and is equally
ready to run you down or to pick you up; and will sooner do either than
wait.
Magnus was to report at West Point on a certain specified day, and his
setting out had been timed accordingly: and now the terror of being
late, and so belated, was upon them all. They hurried him off after
the five-o'clock breakfast; kissing him, crying over him indeed, but
pushing him out of the house. And Mrs. Kindred would not go with him
to the station nor let the girls; Magnus could walk so much faster
alone, or even run, if need be; and they might make him loiter.
So the boy went forth alone; turning round at the last corner, and
waving his hat with an air of triumph which was very make-believe
indeed. His heart was as heavy as lead, and he called himself the
greatest ninny in existence; leaving such a home, and such a mother,
and three such girls. For in that last look back Magnus had not failed
to see the curling smoke that floated away from the chimney of Cherry's
house, high up upon the hill. What a silly he was, sure enough. Why,
the mere old lilac bushes in the dooryard were better than all West
Point. Nevertheless, he went on--
"For men must work and women must weep."
Happily for the women, their life is generally more real and prosaic
than the poet thought; and they also have to work on, through their
tears.
The train came rushing up on time; Magnus swung himself in; and with a
derisive snort the locomotive tore him away from home, and mother, and
the three girls.
As a rule, the inmates of a railway car are extremely unsympathetic
to look at. What face or figure do you ever see there to which you
would like to appeal in case of need? When the need comes, indeed,
there is generally someone to take it up, a comforting thought, worth
remembering; but for the most part people hold themselves visibly
aloof, except in the way of growling over open windows, or of striving
for seats.
Charlemagne Kindred looked up and down the car, scanning briefly
the faces as he took his seat; and the width of the world, and its
exceeding low temperature, settled down upon his heart as a new fact.
The first day and the first night went by wearily enough. Magnus had
decided to save money by not taking a sleeper; assuring his anxious
mother and sisters that he could sleep anyhow and anywhere. And so he
could, at home, as they well knew. But it seemed to him in that long
first night, as if the boards of their barn floor at home were softer
(as they were certainly far sweeter) than all the cushions of the night
express. What fumes the men brought in from the smoking car! What gruff
voices and hollow laughs and idle words were all about him. Disgust,
fatigue, and strangeness took the boy in their hard hands, until, as
the second night drew on, Magnus did not know himself. He wondered what
was the matter with him: wondered if he was going to be ill: and never
guessed for a while that he was growing deathly, deadly homesick.
The knowledge came. Just at nightfall the train slowed up at a little
country station, and a woman and child got out. They had been sitting
far behind Magnus, and, as the child never cried, she had called forth
no special notice; though once or twice when the rush and roar ceased
for a moment, Magnus had caught the sweet canary-bird notes of the
little voice. Now, she passed him in her mother's arms; and in the
moment's pause at the door, the little creature turned and looked down
the dingy car, where what light there was seemed just to show up the
darkness. The sweet, serious eyes gazed along the lines of her late
fellow-passengers--then as the way opened, and the mother moved on,
the child waved her little innocent hand in farewell greeting to that
small, unknown world.
"Dood-night, folks!" she said--and was gone.
I can fancy that many hearts stirred at the sound; but poor Magnus
quite gave way. Oh, for one word from the dear home voices, one touch
of the dear home hands. He remembered Violet, when she was no bigger
than that little thing, nestled in her mother's arms just so. What was
he doing here, away from them all? What was West Point to him? If
indeed he ever got there. Magnus felt now as if he should die by the
way.
He was alone in the seat just then; and the boy pulled his hat down
over his eyes, leaned head and arms against the dingy red cushion,
and let the tears come. The train ran on, past several other small
stations; then drew up before a ten-minutes-for-refreshment place,
where to many people the minutes and the refreshment would be equally
brief and unsatisfactory. Yet the glow and light and counter full of
viands looked tempting enough to a weary passenger; and many got out.
Magnus never stirred. He was not hungry, naturally enough; and besides
had some of the home sandwiches and cookies still in his bag. But touch
_them_--look at them even--in his present mood, he could not.
The car was almost empty: and in the relief of the sudden stillness
and space, Magnus got up and walked to and fro between the open doors.
It was a comfort to do anything, and the ten minutes were far too
short for him as for the rest. He dropped into his seat again, as the
passengers came hurrying back; watching them with languid interest,
and wondering which one would come and sit by him. Last night he had
had a man so redolent of unpleasant things that only a very tired boy
could have managed to sleep at all. Last night, and part of to-day. A
somewhat different set were coming in now; new faces taking the place
of others left behind at the station.
Magnus eyed them one by one, desiring none of them in his seat, and
only hoping they would leave it and him alone, until just as the
train began to pull out of the station. There came in then a man of
a different type of citizenship. Of good height and sturdy build;
close shaven, close cropped: a dress and outfit scrupulously neat and
in order, but evidently bought at the shop of Comfort and Use, and
not from that tailor to all the crowned heads, High Style. Over the
whole man was that look of absolute cleanness--mental, moral, and
physical--which a smooth face always sets off to the best advantage.
Step firm and businesslike, eyes quick and kind. A man "at leisure from
himself," for all the work his Master might set before him. Was there,
perhaps, work here?
The car had thinned out a good deal by this time; people dropping off
at one and another station, getting to their homes as the night drew
on, and there were many vacant seats: here two together, and there one
by somebody else. Mr. Wayne paused a moment, looking down the car, and
from under his straw hat Magnus watched him, with a vague longing that
he would come and sit by _him_.
That is a wonderfully lovely glimpse of unseen things, in one of the
chapters of the book of Daniel, where one angel says to another, "Run,
speak to that young man." I suppose Mr. Wayne was conscious of no
audible monition; but after that moment's pause, he stepped down the
car, past one and another tempting "whole" seat, and took his place by
young Charlemagne Kindred.