The closest I had been to a train was standing in our yard and watching the Southern Pacific trains whiz by 20 yards from our house. We would hear them coming from a mile or so off and run outside to stand and watch them. Excitement meant waving to the man in the caboose and having him wave back, smiling, his hand moving cheerfully in the wind, his "caboose" hat planted firmly on his head. All of them seemed to wear the same hat. We kids sometimes argued among ourselves whether it was the same man each time, or just the same hat.
Mother seemed confident and comfortable here. Her dad was a chief dispatcher for Southern Pacific Railway, and she had ridden the train a lot in her lifetime, often from Ennis, 20 miles to Dallas, where she lived and worked when she graduated high school.
It was only 8 a.m. but the sun was rising in the June sky, and the heat told us summer had shown up again this year. We looked forward to summer and doing all the fun things the season brought, but the heat was oppressive at times. We were accustomed to it since we ran and played outside most days, and only one room in our house, my parents' room, was air conditioned. But the addition of the massive amount of concrete here in Dallas made me feel like we were heating up like stones.
Mother was carrying Jan, who was three, and holding a sturdy traincase, black with offwhite leather trim stitched on its edges in fine, even stitches.
Susan and I walked immediately behind, as she had instructed us, her yellow cotton dress blowing softly back against us when the warm breeze lifted it slightly. Every now and then, she stopped abruptly to avoid bumping into someone, and we ran right into her legs. We had been instructed to hold hands, and did, but I felt like I could walk without holding anyone's hand. After all, I would be six in a few weeks. Susan was only a few inches taller and three years older. She held my hand tightly, even when I made token movements to free my right hand. She was left-handed; I was right handed. Mother had put me on Susan's left so that we held onto one another with the strong dominant hand.
We got in line behind a woman with a little boy about four years old. She held his hand tightly. He wore a miniature cowboy hat, western shirt, jeans, and boots. Mother motioned for Susan and me to move in front of her and Jan , and we responded rapidly. We accidentally bumped the boy, who was about my size. He turned, looked at us and said, "Didya want somethin'?"
"No," Susan said, "Sorry."
"It's fine, I'm sure," said the lady standing next to him. Her blue eyes were kind and clear.
"Where yall goin',?" she turned toward my mother.
"Yuma, Arizona," my mother answered, smiling.
"Us too," she returned.
"Good, we'll have a while to get acquainted if we want. It'll take over 24 hours to get there."
Just then, the conductor yelled, "All aboard!"
The line began moving, and we edged forward with everyone else. A man just to the right of the door of the red traincar held out his hand as Susan and I approached, smiled broadly, and touched Susan's elbow slightly to help her up the steps. There were some white letters beneath the wide orange stripe on the side of the car, but I couldn't read them. I would start first grade in September, and there was no kindergarten in our school. The morning sun beat down on the black roof of the car, sending up heatwaves.
"Have a good trip, girls, ma'am," he said touching the brim of his black billed hat.
"We will, I'm sure," Mother smiled.
We stepped up the tall silver metal steps, their corrugated rubber covering firm beneath our feet. Inside the train., the airconditioned car provided quick relief from the heat outside.
"To the left," Mother said.
Susan and I tentatively moved toward the left. At last, I could let go of her hand now that we had to walk singlefile down the aisle.
"Right there," Mother said. "Sit down, right there; you two take these seats, and Jan and I will sit in front of you."
She set Jan down on the seat, and once Susan and I were both in our seats, she sat down beside Jan. She scooted the traincase back to me so I could put my feet on it. That was much more comfortable. My feet had a place to rest, rather than dangle. Susan pulled her legs up under her, turned toward the large window, took out her book as soon as we sat down and became absorbed in it, ignoring me for the most part.
I felt excited to be on the train. I had never ridden one before, just seen and heard them clack, clacking down the tracks in front of the house.Their mournful whistle at night scared me sometimes, and I would cover my head with the blankets and try to muffle the sound. They shook the house gently when they passed. Sometimes I found it scary; other times oddly comforting.
Daddy would meet us in Yuma, and we would then travel by car to Calexico, California where we would spend the summer. The excitement was dulled a little by the fact that we left my older brother Elton, sister Neila and brother Stephen in Purdon. Stephen was only 13, so my grandmother was supposed to have him stay with her most of the time. Elton had just turned 17 in May and Neila would be 16 in July. The thought hit me, and I felt a surge of sadness realizing that we would not be there to celebrate her birthday.
Daddy was working for Murray Gin Company in Mexicali, but he lived in Calexico. I thought it was funny the way they mixed up the words to make the names of cities on each side of the border. I had no idea what a border was , but I knew the people on the other side spoke a different language, one in which I could count to ten. My dad had taught me that. I secretly hoped I could show off my language knowledge while we were lived there this summer.
He had told a story to my mother about his work in which there was a huge piece of equipment suspended by a cable about 50 feet off the ground. He wanted the worker, who was Mexican, to wait to lower the machine, so he yelled up, "Un momento, un momento," which daddy explained meant "just a minute, just a minute." He was stunned to see the man lowering the equipment immediately anyway, which got my dad into an uproar, something he had perfected throughout his lifetime. He could go from placid calm to hurricane force in 2 seconds or less. "Don't you understand your own language?" he had shouted at the man, with a few more forceful words added for emphasis.
I hated thinking of that, his shouting at someone, even if it was in the man's own language. Later, he probably gave him one of those bottles with the worms in them to patch things up. I had seen him give bottles with a dark liquid and worms in them to the men who came to Texas to work in the gins. We'd go to the shotgun shack that they stayed in for the 3 or 4 months they were there, and Daddy would present the bottles to them. I hated worms; they scared me almost as much as snakes, but the men always seemed pleased to get them.
He worked for Murray during the off-season from ginning. He helped build the gins from the concrete foundation up. He could repair almost any piece of equipment that a gin needed to operate.
I turned around and watched the conductor working his way toward our seats. He took a ticket from each person, punched it, thanked them and moved on. I sure hoped Mother had our tickets. My anxiety started to rise, a small fluttery feeling like thousands of hummingbirds flapping in my chest all at once. It could take me over if it wasn't addressed.
"Susan, Susan, does Mother have our tickets?" I poked her arm once, then harder the second time.
Susan waved me away. She was engrossed in reading a book called Angel Unaware by Dale Evans. I didn't know Dale could write a book; I just liked watching her ride her horse Buttermilk on her television show with her husband Roy Rogers. Susan said the book was sort of sad since their little girl died at the end of it. I told her I didn't want to know any more about it, and she didn't talk about it anymore except to assure me the baby was in heaven. That made me feel better, but I didn't want to think about it. Anyway, right now I was very concerned about staying on the train.
"Susan, did Mother bring the tickets? Will they make us get off the train if she doesn't have them? Or if she only has two, will they make some of us get off? Or if she only left one of them at home, will I have to get off?" I started kicking Mother's seat, reaching through the space between the seats, waving my hand around wildly, all the while talking rapidly toward Susan who was frowning down at her book, trying to pretend I was not there. "Or do you think Mother got the tickets? Or do the tickets have a certain name on them? The man is almost here! We need our tickets !"
"Stop, Felisa! Mother, please make her leave me alone."
Mother turned then, and leaned around the back of her seat.
"What is it? What's the matter?"
"The man is coming, and I was just wondering if you have all the tickets.. I'm afraid he might make us get off, or just one of us maybe," I said, sounding calm, my heart beating hard in my temples.
Mother reached back with her right hand and patted my leg. "Stop worrying. I have everything we need. Now just settle back and enjoy looking out the window."
"Okay," I responded, but I knew I couldn't rest until the man had come up, punched our tickets, and I was assured we were legitimate passengers.
I didn't have to wait long. In a few minutes, the kindly man came, got the tickets from Mother, and counted 1,2,3 as he punched them. Oh no, only three. I reached around the seat in front and poked Mother's arm.
"Three," I said more shrilly than I intended. "Three?"
The man looked at me. He pointed to Susan, then me, then Mother as he counted, "One, two, three and baby rides free, " he said, pointing to Jan. We were legitimate,now, I thought, the hummingbirds flying off en masse from my chest.
"How long to Yuma?" Mother asked the conductor.
"Ma'am, you 're riding the Sunset Limited, and when we get to El Paso, Texas you'll be on the Sunset Route, nd we plan to reach Yuma in about 26 hours. We should get there about 11:35 Mountain Time."
About three hours after we boarded, I got hungry. Mother told me my feet were on our lunch, and she got up out of her seat and pulled the traincase toward her, leaving my feet to hang off the seat. When she opened the case, the most lovely smell drifted up-fried chicken. The case was absolutely full of fried chicken. And apples. She gave each of us a piece of chicken, a slice of apple, and a paper towel to wipe the grease. Nettie had gotten up before dawn that morning to cut up and fry the birds. We stopped and picked them up at her house on our way through Corsicana. It was our favorite food although we loved most everything our grandmother or mother cooked.
The lady with the little boy was sitting across the aisle, and Mother offered them chicken. They agreed since they could see she had enough to feed most of the people on the train. The lady insisted that she go and get drinks for everyone, and mother thanked her and insisted on giving her money.
The train had initially moved slowly out of the station and picked up speed. We saw grass and trees as we sped across the country, but the longer we were on the train, the more sand there seemed to be in Texas. Susan told me that west Texas was more "arid", but I didn't really understand that word. There wasn't a lot to do but color, drink stuff, and go to the bathroom. I made a lot of trips to the bathroom because it was the only excuse Mother would let me use to get out of my seat. I stuck my hands through the space between the seats and entertained Jan, but she got tired of that sooner than I did. She slept a good part of the time, and Mother read books to her.
Finally, at suppertime, Mother took all of us to the hamburger grill to eat. We sat in wooden chairs around the gray formica table. We all ordered hamburgers and french fries, and Mother told us to drink water because it was better for us. Jan had milk. Susan and I didn't like milk, so we weren't jealous.
We walked back to our seats, exaggerating our swaying back and forth with the movement of the train, bumping into one another front to back, and bumping into the seats in the chaircar, and giggling. Passengers were beginning to get ready for bed.
Those in the chaircar would be sleeping sitting up, but reclined. There was a sleeping car, but I thought it was probably for rich people. I didn't think we were rich, but I knew I had never gone without food, or had the sad lunches that some of my acquaintances at school brought. Biscuits with mustard only.
Those days when Earlene Beauchamp, a girl in my class brought that, I could barely eat the hot lunch the cafeteria ladies cooked. The homemade rolls, hot buttered corn, greenbeans and ham just seemed extravagant. I didn't know how to share it without embarrassing Earlene. She had a lot of pride, and she was real quiet. On those days, my lunch didn't taste as good; I'd just eat a little, trying to identify with Earlene. But I really couldn't. I wanted to, but I really couldn't.
Mother gave some money to the conductor, and he brought us some pillows. We reclined our chairs. Susan had finished her book, so she was talking to me some. I saw another book stashed in a little cloth bag, so I knew before bedtime, she'd start reading again. Sure enough, she reached down, retrieved a Nancy Drew mystery from the bag and opened it.
I tried to curl up in my seat, but I needed a little more room, so I started pressing my feet on Susan's thigh to try to make her yield. She inched toward the window a little ( I was in the aisle seat) without glancing away from her book. Since that had worked so well, I pushed a little harder. Again, she inched slightly over. Emboldened by my strategic takeover of the space, I raised both feet and planted them in her lap, right on top of her book.
That was enough. She shoved my feet away and looked toward Mother, who had just dozed off to sleep, for help. Jan was sound asleep beside Mother, leaning into her side.
"Don't wake Mother up," I started.
"You get your feet off me," she said firmly.
"I need more space," I whined.
"You have enough space. Just put your feet back in your own seat and go to sleep."
"Well, you're not sleeping anyway. You're just going to stay up all night reading."
"No. No, I am not. In fact, I'm going to sleep right now," she said haughtily. And she tilted her head back against the seat and placed her open book across her face. "Now put your feet back in your own seat."
I turned completely away from her and squeezed into a tight ball with my feet under me. The rhythmic clacking of the wheels on the track lulled me into a sound sleep. In the morning, we ate donuts Mother had carried in her purse, and she let Susan and I buy milk for Jan and juice for us. I noticed that Susan had read through about one-third of her book, but I didn't say anything in order to keep the morning peaceful.
Looking out the large window, everything looked "cactusey" to me. I mean, we had cactus, but this looked so desolate and forlorn. No grass to be seen anywhere. And the dirt was reddish brown sand as far as you could see. Susan said we were probably in the desert now. We had, she explained, slept through most of New Mexico, and we were probably in the area just before we entered Arizona. These were states, like Texas, she told me. I had little comprehension of what she meant, but I knew they looked different than where we lived.
We would see Daddy later that day. We hadn't seen him in about a month. We missed him, sort of, but life at our house was so busy , loud, and chaotic all the time, you would probably have to be gone longer than a month to be badly missed. He had travelled to Peru in the past to build gins and been gone about that long. But we wouldn't let Mother be gone that long. Oh no. She could not be gone for more than a day or two without serious protests from us.
I distinctly remembered her going to White Sands, New Mexico to visit our father on a job there. She said it was beautiful, so I guess there were parts of New Mexico that didn't have cactus and sand. The day she left, we, the younger sisters begged her not to go, and I hung onto her as she tried to go out the door and cried loudly, following her to the back door of my grandmother's house in Corsicana. My poor grandmother, a widow, was charged with trying to take care of the three of us in her home and probably checking on the older kids, 20 miles away in Purdon, at the same time. But Mother was firm. She needed to go see Daddy, and we would be happy with Nettie, she said. And then she left. But this time, on this trip, we were going with her. That's how I liked it. That's how we all liked it.
If I thought New Mexico looked desolate and forlorn, it looked absolutely lush compared to Arizona. Sand for miles and miles.. Everything was the same brown color, and even the buildings seemed to fade into the everlasting sand. The train depot was brown, most of the people were brown, and I felt like I was on the set of one of the westerns we watched at home. The sand was gritty and permeated everything.
When we came down the metal steps we had entered 26 hours earlier, the sun was so bright I thought it might pierce a hole in my eyes if I kept them fully open, so I squinted real hard. I felt somebody hugging me tightly and laughing. I opened my eyes from a tight squint to a loose squint and looked up to see Daddy kissing Mother like the movie stars did when they were real glad to see someone. Then he gave Susan a kiss on the cheek, squeezed her warmly, and put Jan on his shoulders.
We were on our way on the sandswept highway in fifteen minutes, once we had retrieved our bags and Daddy loaded them into the trunk of the 56 Chevy Belaire. This would be the grandest summer ever! The car had air conditioning, and Daddy said the motel where we would live did too. California was seeming more enticing than ever. I could hardly wait to get there!
Installed
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