Chapter 29

The Train

At the railroad station, I crave to stand on the platform and watch the massive machines, but Grandpa makes me sit inside “like a lady” and wait for our train to be called.

Outside the window, a train chugs down the track. Hissing steam and belching smoke, it screeches to a stop with sparks flying from its giant wheels. Its size and power make me feel as small and helpless as a rag doll, yet I quiver with excitement.

It’s not our train. The engine takes on water, rumbles and quakes like a huge beast, blasts a loud whistle, and moves down the track, pulling freight behind it.

Cars heaped with coal follow one another like ants to an anthill, until flat cars with logs strapped to them appear. The logs are full-sized trees stripped of branches. Telegraph poles perhaps. I recall Grandpa shaking his head at stubbled hillsides of cut-down trees. I reckon new things cost us old ones.

Next are cars filled with what looks like hogs. I have never ridden on a train, but hogs do. Though their destination won’t likely please them.

A boy comes through the station selling candy. “Best candy in the state,” he says. 

Grandpa buys a sack of gumdrops. They’re sugary sweet, but don’t taste any better than what Mr. Pender sells.

While I watch trains, the Grandpa who grunted in silence at breakfast talks to everybody.

He introduces me to three men I recognize from the breakfast table next to ours. “They’s brothers. A-goin’ ta Philadelphia ta visit their granny. Say Howdy, Ginnie Lee.”

I swallow the piece of gumdrop I’ve been rolling around on my tongue. “Pleased to meet you.”

Grandpa keeps talking, but I scarcely listen. I pop in another gumdrop and watch the tracks, until I hear him mention Rebecca’s Branch. His voice reminds me of the candy-selling boy, making our home sound like the best in the state.

When the men go to the platform, Grandpa turns to me. “Seem like nice young fellers, don’t they?”

“I reckon.”

“We kin stay on the train clean ta Philadelphia, so’s ya kin git better acquainted.”

My jaw drops open before he winks at me. I shake my head. “You aren’t still looking for a husband for me, are you?”

“In olden times, a pa chose his daughter’s husband when she was still a baby. Kept her from bein’ a’ old maid.”

“I’d rather be an old maid. Daddies don’t know persimmons about picking husbands.”

“What about grandpas?”

I smirk. “Daddies don’t pick grandpas.”

Grandpa chuckles and lets the subject go, but it hangs in my mind anyhow.

Our train is finally called. My eagerness carries me out to the platform’s smoky, steamy, gritty air and smell of burning coal. The huge engine hisses and belches.

A uniformed man carries my suitcase, and another puts down a wood stool so my foot can reach the train car’s bottom step. I grab the handrail. It carries vibrations from the train, like a living thing welcoming me aboard.

Our seats are red plush, but old. Shiny spots show where scores of heads and bodies have worn away the threads.

As the train chugs away from the station, its noise makes my head throb. I get accustomed to it as we speed through the countryside. It seems I sit still, and telegraph poles with their sleek black lines race past the window.

A water cooler with a spout sits at the end of our car. A mama wets her handkerchief to wipe her young’un’s sticky face and hands. I’m thirsty from the gumdrops, but doubt I can stand on high heels while the train’s moving, let alone walk to the end of the car.

The train’s wheels screech beneath us, and we lurch as it comes to a stop. I crane my neck to see outside. It’s a station, so like the one in Morgantown, it seems we never left.

At the next station, I am no longer startled by the screech and lurching stop. Folks get on, talking excited-like. I hear the word suffragette.

I see the platform from my window. Women wave signs, like in newspaper pictures of West Virginia mine strikes last year. I can’t read them from here. “Grandpa, are they on strike?”

He leans across me to get a better look. “No, they’s tryin’ ta git folks’ attention. They wants votin’ rights.”

“Women? Voting?” They have my attention.

On Election Day back home, Daddy and Grandpa trek down to Skitter Falls. If Mama is up to it, we all go. School children have a holiday, and men line up outside the school to cast their ballots. Buildings are draped with red, white, and blue, and we eat a picnic lunch under the persimmon tree near the falls.

Folks turn up in droves for Election Day. Men come from hollows, where you can’t even see a house. Daddy talks with Mama about candidates before he votes.

“I think Mama should be allowed to vote, too” I say.

Grandpa agrees. “I know how it is bein’ treated like you ain’t good enough ta vote. Was treated that way m’self.”

“You were? Why?”

“On account’a the War. When West Virginia become a new state, she hankered ta show her Yankee colors. Them what fought Confederate lost our right ta have a say in what the state or country done. I were twenty-six years old afore I was considered worthy’a votin’ agin. Hope it don’t take women so long.”