The Boy Who Loved Trains (Campfire Story)

There was once a boy named Eddie who loved trains. Not in the way that most boys love trains - with a poster on the wall and a set under the Christmas tree - but in the deep, abiding, slightly inconvenient way that worried his mother and puzzled his teachers.

Eddie had read every book about trains in the county library, which amounted to four books, two of which were picture books he had long outgrown but checked out anyway. He knew the difference between a 4-4-0 American and a 2-8-2 Mikado. He could name every major railroad line operating in the United States, and several that had gone bankrupt. He owned seventeen model locomotives, arranged by type on a shelf his father had built specifically to avoid hearing about trains at dinner.

But more than any book or model, Eddie loved the 3:47.

That was what everyone in town called it - the 3:47 - because it arrived at exactly 3:47 every weekday afternoon, rain or shine, summer or winter. It was the only passenger train that stopped in their small town, a fact the station master, Mr. Pruitt, mentioned to anyone who would listen as evidence that the town was "still on the map, by God."

Every day after school, Eddie would walk the six blocks to the station, stopping briefly at Donahue's Drug Store to look at the model train on display in the window - he had been looking at it for three years; it was not for sale - and take his place on the platform bench, third from the left, the one with the loose armrest, and wait.

At 3:47 - sometimes 3:48, but never 3:49 - the train would appear around the long curve east of town, and the conductor, a broad-shouldered man named Carl Briggs who had worked that line for twenty-two years, would lean out from the cab and blow the whistle - two long, one short, one long - and wave at Eddie with his whole arm, not just his hand, the way you wave at someone you are genuinely glad to see.

And nothing in the world could have made the boy happier.

This went on for two years, three months, and - by Eddie's careful count - eleven days.

Then one Tuesday in October, the 3:47 came around the bend, and Carl Briggs did not blow the whistle. He did not wave. He sat straight ahead in the cab as the train slid past the platform, and was gone.

Eddie sat on the bench with the loose armrest for a long time afterward. Then he walked home. He did not stop at Donahue's Drug Store.

When he got home, he told his mother he was never going to the train station again. His mother, who was a practical woman, did not argue. She asked if he wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. He said yes. He ate it. Then he went to his room and lay on his bed and stared at the shelf of seventeen locomotives until supper.

At supper he said again that he was never going to the train station again.

His mother passed him the potatoes and said, "Go back once more. You have given that station two years and three months of your life. Give it one more afternoon."

"Two years, three months, and eleven days," Eddie said.

"Then make it twelve," she said.

The next afternoon, Eddie walked the six blocks to the station. He did not stop at Donahue's. He sat down on the third bench from the left. At exactly 3:47 - one of Carl's better arrivals - the train came around the bend, and Carl Briggs leaned out from the cab and blew the whistle, two long, one short, one long, and waved with his whole arm.

And nothing in the world could have made the boy happier.

Afterward, Eddie waited on the platform while Carl walked back from seeing off the passengers. Eddie had never spoken to Carl directly before, but today he had a question.

"Mr. Briggs," he said. "Yesterday you didn't wave."

Carl took off his cap and scratched the back of his head. "Yeah," he said. "Sorry about that, son. I was having a rough day. Needed to let off some steam."

Eddie looked at him for a long moment.

"I thought," Eddie said carefully, "that was the whistle's job."

Carl put his cap back on. He thought about it for a second. Then he laughed all the way back to the cab.