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ROSE LIFTED HER CHEEK to Tom’s goodbye kiss while he held her hands in his. He grinned his “little brother” grin but spoke soberly.
“Sis, I know this change of scenery will be good for you, so don’t be worried about Mother’s fussiness. I will see she has company and doesn’t get too lonely—but you mind your ‘Ps’ and ‘Qs’ and see we have nothing to worry about, right?”
The look of manly concern on his face made her proud and caused tears to prick her eyes. He stared down for a moment and then continued, still keeping her gloved fingers in his.
“Only don’t be gone too long, Rosie. What I mean is . . . You will be coming back, won’t you?”
Good Tom. Her loyal champion, proven and true. Rose disliked distressing him. And yet she mustn’t fool herself into believing her future was bound up in his. Tom had Abigail and a child coming soon.
“Tom, dear, I promise I will do what I believe is best for me. Will that please you?”
His curly head nodded mutely. Rose stretched up to plant her kiss on his cheek.
“Give my love to all. I will write soon.”
She turned and the porter took her traveling bag in hand and assisted her to mount the steel steps into the train. A few minutes sufficed to settle in the car he led her to but she was on the wrong side of the train to see Tom. The cars lurched backwards as the conductor strode through shouting, “Allll abooooard!”
One unoccupied seat remained on the other side of the car, and she hurried to its window. Tom was searching anxiously for her. His face cleared when he saw her waving.
What am I doing? Rose wondered. Fear surged up into her throat and her mouth went dry. The train moved forward sluggishly, great puffs of black smoke belching from its engine. In panic she thought, I can still get off. I should go back. But she stayed, waving until Tom’s blond hair was blocked from view.
Cautiously she returned to her seat, inwardly cringing from every stranger around her. She sat still in the seat and watched the station as they passed through and beyond, faster and faster. Brushing the unwanted tears away, she pressed her lips together in resolve.
“If God has spoken to me, then I will be led by him. I will find the right place because he will show it to me, and everything will be all right. At the very least I will have obeyed him.”
She drew a measure of strength from the thought, and out of her bag she pulled her notebook. With pencil in hand she began to make plans. When no one appeared to harass or intimidate her, she relaxed and the day passed quickly.
In and out of busy stations, rolling south for now through bare fields and smoky cities they steamed. New faces arrived and familiar ones departed. The car wasn’t overly crowded, and no one came to claim the seat next to her. Rose had never traveled alone before, but as long as no one made familiar, she was happy to be left singular with a warm glow of anticipation running around in her heart.
Her scribbling continued until the porter surprised her by announcing dinner. Even alone in the dining car her serene mood remained. She lingered over her coffee until the porter showed her to her sleeping compartment. The swaying of the train was soothing, and her thoughts wandered.
I am thirty-three years old now. And for the first time in my life I am doing something on my own. The newness of the experience was satisfying, and she recalled a similar one from when she was thirteen years old. She and Tom were returning from town in their family’s carriage when Tom pointed out Pastor and Mrs. Greenstreet walking.
Rose took it into her mind to stop the coachman and invite them to ride up. They were happy to and expressed their thanks to such a degree that Rose was inspired to invite them to dinner. Such an invitation was proper, and the circumstances did warrant it, but she knew full well Father’s particular aversion to mixing socially with preachers, even their own. He went to church on Sundays, and that was duty fulfilled. One did not have to see the minister outside of church, after all.
Rose chatted pleasantly with the Greenstreets, quenching every other consideration and ignoring Tom’s goggling stare, and soon handed them neatly, with grace as befitted a young lady, into her mother’s keeping. Such an afternoon! Everything was of course properly gone through and the Reverend and his wife enjoyed their dinners immensely. But Rose had never seen such struggles for composure in her parents.
“Whatever possessed you to do such a thing, Rose?” her mother remonstrated fruitlessly that evening. Mr. Blake had merely retired to his study in tight-lipped silence and had not reappeared for supper.
“Why, Mother, did I do something wrong?” Rose had inquired sweetly.
“No child, of course not.” Her harried mother had left the room, defeated, to speak placations to an indignant cook.
Rose laughed aloud at the reminiscence and smothered her face in the pillow of her rocking sleeper car. Yes, she was stepping out like that again. This time looking for . . . a place a place to dream, she thought sleepily. I can always go back, were her last conscious thoughts. Trains run both directions.
The train carrying Rose on her venture in faith stopped early the next morning, and she was required to transfer to another one. This new vehicle was pointed due west and began its chugging progress through heavily populated communities and small patches of country and past landscapes the likes of which were new to her experience. Rose stared transfixed for hours at the unfolding miles.
They stopped often, sometimes only for an hour or a few hours to take on coal, water, or other passengers. Twice they stopped overnight, and Rose would enjoy a hot bath and a “real” bed in a hotel—taking care to return in plenty of time for the train’s departure. One day began to blend with another, and all the while she kept her Bible close by, waiting for some indication, some direction.
The passing scenery was more open as the days sped by. Farms abounded now, newly plowed. Any cities were mostly smaller and farther apart. Miles to the north were the Great Lakes, she was informed, the inland fresh water seas of America. Rose had no real desire to see large bodies of water, and they had already crossed more rivers than she could count. Still she paid her fare and rode on.
Every other day she wrote a letter to her mother, Tom, and Abigail combined. She knew they would all read each other’s letters from her so she just wrote the one, filling it full of colorful descriptions and observations.
Her most meaningful comment was how the whole land was coming alive right under her watching window. To Rose, it was like seeing a flower unfold before her eyes, and she always remembered the sweet joy of it in years to come.
Some days she was forced into company. Most was pleasant; with other companions she remained silent and aloof. Once a drunken young man presumed to talk to her but a gentleman passenger alerted the conductor, and the two of them removed the offending individual. Then in Illinois, she faced a swiftly approaching choice: Would she go north, south, or across the Mississippi? Mainly because it was the most daring thing to do she continued straight west.
The day they crossed the wide river a spasm of trepidation came on her, and haunting memories of the icy tragedy besieged her. However, seeing the broad expanse of water flowing calmly in the warm April sunshine banished the ice-choked images. This river wasn’t the frozen deathtrap of her imagination. It could be gotten over.
Into the homestead and frontier country they went. Rose had already seen more of “real life” on this trip than she’d ever seen in her sheltered existence; now she began to experience it too.
The nicer trains with new upholstery and sleeping cars were gone. She found it difficult to sleep in the same seat she also spent the day in and harder still to keep up her standards of grooming. Often she would walk up and down the aisles of the car to get relief from aching bones and cramped muscles.
More than once she put her head slightly out of an open window, risking soot or cinders to briefly escape the smell of soiled babies, greasy food, and unwashed bodies. Finally, one evening, the train slid into a small town, and the conductor announced a layover of several hours.
Instantly Rose was on her feet. She questioned the conductor at length and then returned to her seat and pulled out her bag.
I am going to take a rest from riding trains!
Stepping down from the car without assistance (no fancy porters out west), she made her way to the ticket office, spoke to the man about her trunk, and turned to the town’s main street. A clean hotel was her desperate concern—and there it was.
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