The Moffat Museum (16 page)

Jane watched the lady gather up her belongings. She said, "I hope you have a nice visit."

This brought a smile to the lady's face. She said, "You're a right smart little girl, running that contraption up the tracks. And all the while we were on the right train until then. Oh, Walton, oh, he can be mean, but he wouldn't do a thing like that, put me on the wrong train. I hope you're on your right one and that paper you have there is to be trusted. Otherwise, hop off and get yourself onto one of those little contraptions again and pump it down the tracks to Neufchâtel."

"New Rochelle," Jane said. "Neufchâtel's a cheese. We eat it ... snappy!"

"Cheese! Now, I've heard everything," said the lady.

The conductor came up to the Montowese lady. He said, "Come on, Ida Brooks. You get off here. This is Greens Farms. No more excursions on handcars this trip."

He took her satchel, but she hung on to her raspberries. Jane watched her from the window. A jolly-looking rather plump lady rushed to meet her.
That must be Agnes,
thought Jane.

"Ada!" screamed Agnes. She laughed heartily. "Ada! Of all things! I thought Ida was coming. What a nice surprise! I love Ida and I love you!" She kissed and hugged Ada some more to prove this. Ada smiled and handed her the raspberries.

The train began to move. The last thing Jane heard the lady from Montowese say was, "Oh, dear me! Oh, deary me! Did you write 'Ida' not 'Ada'? Your writing is so bad. Oh, I am the wrong person..."

Jane heard no more, but looking back out the open window, she saw Ada making motions as though making a little handcar go, pushing the imaginary rod up and pressing down, and pointing back down the tracks while a look of marvel spread over Agnes's face. Then suddenly remembering Jane, her rescuer, the lady pointed Jane out to her cousin. Both waved, and that was the last Jane saw of that lady from Montowese.

Peace now on the eight-fifteen. A major unexpected happening that had not been rehearsed had happened. Would there be more?

A man sat down in Ada's seat. Then he noticed a little green worm inching its way along the windowsill, raising its head now and then as though to get its bearings. Little did he know this was a traveler worm that had been on a handcar in a box of berries. When the worm reached the end of the sill and paused in its searching, the man gently lifted it between his thumb and forefinger and dropped it out the window.

What a kind man!
thought Jane.
And how brave! To pick up a little lost worm! I'll learn to be that brave sometime...

Jane checked Greens Farms off on her timetable. She examined George's red bandanna, folded it carefully, and put it in her pocket. She smiled. It had N.Y., N.H., & H. R.R. CO. printed on it in white. What an addition to the museum!

Then dreamily she watched the passing scene, almost forgetting to mark off the stops ... hills in the far places, small rivers meandering...

She came to with a start. "Nes' station, New Rochelle!" said the conductor. Jane quickly gathered her things together and stood up and went to the back of the coach to stand beside the conductor.

He recognized her as the little girl who had rescued a little lost lady and had propelled a handcar lickety-lickety down the tracks to catch up with the eight-fifteen.

"Goin' by handcar wherever you're goin'?" he joked as he helped her off.

Jane smiled. "Nope!" she said. "Don't know yet..."

And that was the last that Jane saw of that nice conductor or the eight-fifteen as it started up and went puff-puff-puffing on its way to Grand Central Station, New York.

Jane stood on the platform to get her bearings. She looked around. She knew what trolley she should take if Ray and Sylvie did not meet her, or that she could walk.

She didn't see Ray and Sylvie. She did see the trolley, but she had just decided to walk when she heard a familiar horn ... sounded just like Sam Doody's horn. And there were Ray and Sylvie riding up to the curb, waving, saying, "Jane! Jane! We're a little late. But here we are!"

So she had after all been met by Ray and Sylvie and been driven to their home in Wheezy.

It wasn't far. They passed the little wooden church where Ray was the minister. Right next to it was their house, the rectory, brown like the church. They drove around a few blocks so Jane would know where some stores were and where she was at if she went for a walk, and she saw some nice little shops and thought she would buy a present for Joey and Rufus sometime when she didn't have anything to do.

But there wasn't going to be much of that. The week flew by. It seemed as though the ride on the eight-fifteen was longer than the whole week that she stayed with Sylvie and Ray.

The first thing they did was have a big dinner of Swedish meatballs and other good things. They were very interested in Jane's story of the ride on the little handcar and all about the lady from Montowese. They both knew Montowese well themselves and felt a little homesick sometimes for those picnics they used to have up on Peter's Rock. The confusion about Ada and Ida made Ray burst into guffaws.

After dinner Ray went into his study to work on his sermon, and Sylvie said she had to go and meet with the Girls' Friendly but would not be long. It was like that every day. It might just as well have been Cranbury, for Sylvie was always having choir rehearsals, altar guild meetings, sewing circle meetings, and suchlike.

Although Sylvie did teach Jane how to crochet and to embroider, so that Jane was able to put lace around a little handkerchief for Mama, Jane found she did have some time to herself, to read, to sew, and to go for walks.

The first walk she took was to the row of small shops. In the window of one she had seen little shiny black leather notebooks like the trainman and the conductor had to write important train matters in.

She bought three ... one for Joey for his dates and facts and figures, even though he really didn't need to write these things down. He had them in his head. Jane didn't know what Rufus would put in his, but she knew what she would put in hers..."Conversations." That was going to be the name of her notebook.

When she got back in her little room after her walk, she rubbed all the notebooks on the bandanna that George had given her, so when she got home to Cranbury, she could say, "Smell them. What do they smell like?"

If they didn't know, she would say, "Train."

And so the week went by. Oh yes, they took some rides in Wheezy, one lovely one along a river on a new parkway and one to an amusement park in Rye. But before she knew it, she was back in Wheezy with Sylvie and Ray going to the railroad station. This time it was a train in the early afternoon, a two o'clock train from Grand Central so that she would be home in time for dinner.

"Give my love to Mama. Give my love to everybody," said Sylvie. As the train was leaving, she was trying not to cry.

Soon Jane was back in Cranbury. Joey was there at the station. At dinner she told them about Ray and Sylvie and how they lived. But the story they wanted to have her tell again and again was how she and a little lady from Montowese had a ride on a handcar to catch up with their train. And they all liked the part about the raspberries and the little green worm.

"Montowese! Montowese!" Mama murmured, for many memories lay behind that name.

Mama admired the handkerchief. Joey loved the notebook, rubbed it, thought he might work for that railroad company someday. Rufus rushed up to his room with his leather notebook and right away wrote in it the words
trolley cars.

The next morning Jane climbed the fence. She hoped it was laundry say for Mrs. Price. It was. Mrs. Price came out with her basket.

"Jane, you back? So soon? How was it all? Come over here."

Jane jumped down. She and Mrs. Price sat on the back stoop. Jane began her story. "Well, there was a lady on the train..."

"Do tell! I want to know," said Mrs. Price. So Jane told her the story of her ride on the eight-fifteen.

"You know?" she said. "It was just exactly like I said. You can rehearse and rehearse a play or a happening. But the real thing is never exactly the way you had it all rehearsed in your mind."

"I know," said Mrs. Price nodding her head sagely. "Who would ever have thought up a handcar?"

One Saturday morning Rufus was sitting by himself on the curbstone at the corner of Ashbellows Place and Elm Street watching the trolley cars go by. He was feeling a little lonesome, but the sight of the trolley cars going back and forth cheered him up. They made him think of the carbarn. In all of Cranbury, the carbarn was his and Joey's favorite place to visit.

On Saturday mornings they had almost always gone over to the carbarn to look at the trolleys, but this summer Joey had so many jobs to do that he couldn't spend Saturday mornings in the carbarn.

The carbarn was deep and wide and filled with tracks and switches and trolley cars. The trolleys waiting to go out were near the front. Some with workmen under them or in them, fixing something, were near the back. But it wasn't these trolleys that drew Joey and Rufus like a magnet to the carbarn.

Way, way back, in the very darkest and dustiest corner of the carbarn, was one little trolley car only about one quarter the length of regular ones. It was not a toy. It was a real trolley car, short but just as high, and it had its own pole to guide it on the wires overhead.

It was a closed-in trolley car, not one of the open summertime ones. Joey and Rufus always made their way immediately to that little trolley car, stared at it and studied it. They loved it. They wished they owned it. From the time Rufus was a very little boy, Joey had taken him to see that little trolley. It was always right there in that back corner, as though expecting visitors, them ... Joey and Rufus. Once Rufus told Joey he thought he had seen it in the distance going down Elm Street. He wasn't sure. Joey was skeptical. But then, thinking it over, Joey said, "Well, maybe they do take it out once in a while at odd times, maybe even in the nighttime, to make sure it could still run if it had to."

They never checked with any of the men who worked in the carbarn, all of whom had gotten to know Joey and Rufus. They just liked to imagine things like this about the little trolley car, and at night in bed sometimes they made up stories about it, some very funny, and they laughed themselves to sleep and dreamed about the little trolley.

If the men in the carbarn ever did take the little trolley out, Rufus thought this might be the very day. They might run it down Elm Street right past him, to check and see if it could be a useful trolley again.

No such thing happened. Rufus had a powerful craving to see the little trolley, but he'd never been to the carbarn without Joey. Joey was helping Mrs. Crowley trim the show windows of her department store opposite the green, not far from the carbarn. He was probably putting down fresh crinkly crepe paper, pads and pencils, straw hats, maybe. He was probably wishing the same thing Rufus was, that he could take a look at their little trolley. They had gotten to call it theirs. It was a shame to have it just stand there dusty and forsaken. All the other trolleys, the closed-in ones and the open ones, went in and out, but not that one-and-only small one.

It should belong to people like him and Joey who'd take good care of it, thought Rufus. It shouldn't just stay back there; it looked lonesome and anxious to get out on the tracks again.

Maybe I should go there by myself and take a look at it, make sure it hasn't been stolen ... or bought,
thought Rufus.
Why shouldn't I go there alone?
he asked himself. He'd wave to Joey if he was in the show window. Joey would know where he was going ... to the carbarn!

The carbarn was practically catty-corner from Crowley's. It was next to a small graveyard with ancient gravestones, slim slabs of granite bending forward from severe storms.

Rufus stood up. He decided to take the shortcut across the empty lot behind the library and run down Campbell Avenue, wave to Joey if he did see him, then cross the street and race over to the carbarn. The man in the little office in the front would let him come in; he knew Rufus and Joey very well. He was nice and always said "Hello." He was used to seeing Rufus with his older brother, but Rufus thought he would let him in, that he knew he could trust Rufus by himself or with anybody else, a friend perhaps. He was the man in charge of the comings and goings of all trolleys, saw that they had the right signs on them, that they were spick-and-span. The carbarn was like a stable, only it was filled with trolley cars, not horses.