The Station Agent Story

The Station Agent Story.
422.10

I will have to tell the story:
Let me see: ’twas eight years ago,
One blusterin night in winter
When the alt was just thick with snow
As the freight came round the curve there,
They beheld man on the track,
Bravin’ the storm before him, but
Not heedin’ the foe at his back;

And, ere a hand could grasp the bell rope,
Or a finger reach the rod.
One sweep from the cruel snow plow
Had sent the man’s soul to its God!
They laid him out here in the freighthouse.
And I stayed with him that night- He’d one of the pleasantent faces,
So hopeful and young and bright.

There was only a worn out letter;
I know it by heart. It sald:
“Dear John: Baby May grows finely.
I send you this curl from her head.
We will meet at Brackenboro’;
The grandfather’s sad and lone.
But I read him your kind words, saying,
When we’ve a home of our own,

He shall sing the songs of old England
Beneath our own willow tree.
That was all there was of it, lady,
And ’twas just signed. “Alice Leigh.
“So we made u grave in the morning,
And buried the man out there
Alone, unmourned, in a stranger’s land,
With only a stranger’s prayer.

But when he’d slept in his lonely grave
Out there nigh onto a year,
Ray’s freight run into a washout
By the culvert, away down here:
There were only two passengers that night
Dead, when we found them there
A sweet little English woman,
And a baby with golden hair.

On her breast lay the laughing baby,
With its rosy finger tips
Still waim, and the fair, young mother
With a frozen smile on her lips.
We laid them out here in the freighthouse,
I stayed that night with the dead;
I shall never forget the letter
We found in her purse. It said:

“Dear Allce; praise God I’ve got here!
I’ll soon have a home for you now;
But you must come with the baby,
As soon as you can anyhow.
Comfort the grandfather and tell him
That by and by he shall come,
And sing the songs of old England,
‘Neath the willows beside our home:
For close by the door of our cottage,
I’ll set out a willow tree.
For his sake and the sake of old England,
Lovingly yours, John Leigh,”

The tears filled my eyes as I read its
But I whispered, “God is just!”
For I knew the true heart yonder
Then only a handful of dust- Had drawn this sweet little woman
Right here, and God’s merciful love
Had taken her from the sorrow
To the glad reunion abovel

So close by the grave of the other,
We laid her away to rest:
The golden haired English mother,
With the baby upon her breast.
I planted those trees above them,
For I knew their story, you see:
And I thought their rest would be sweeter
Neath their own loved willow tree.

Five years rolled along, and, lady,
My story may now seem to you
Like a wonderful piece of fiction,
Hut I tell you it is true,
As true av that God la above us!
One summer day, hot and clear,
As the train rolled into the station
And stopped to change engines here.

Among a company of Mormone
Came a tremblin white lindred man;
He asked me, with volce very enger.
“Will you tell me, sir, if you can,
Of a pince called Urackenboro’?
And how far have I get to go
“It’s the next station north. “I answered,
“Only thirteen iniles below.”

His old face lit up for a moment,
With a look of joy complete:
Then he threw up his hands toward heaven
And dropped down dead at my feat!
“Old Hugh Leigh is dead,” said a Mormon.
“And sights o’ trouble he’s been.
Nothin would do when we started,
But that he must come with us then

To find Alice, John, and the baby:
And his heart was well-nigh broke.
With waitin’ and watenin in England,
For letters they never wrote.”
So we buried him there with the others.
Beneath the willow tree.
Twas God’s way of ending the story- More perfect than man’s could bef