Love Poems and Sad Stories - The Train Ride

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A woman and her two small children had fled from an abusive husband and had returned to her parents potato farm in North Central Wisconsin. Her parents were too poor to support them so she had asked the county for assistance.

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At first they reluctantly complied but after awhile they decided to ship her and her children back to Milwaukee because it was their responsibility to feed them. They had no choice but to return not knowing what would happen when they got there. The story begins at the train station.

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The Train Ride

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She was cold and hungry as she huddled with her two small children, waiting for the train to arrive to take her back to the city, which still held such terrible memories for her. It wasn’t that long ago that she and her children had escaped from a drunken, abusive husband. Using a five dollar gold piece, that her father had secretly given her on her wedding night,

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She had fled while her husband was at work and returned home to the poor potato farm where her parents still managed to eke out a living. Then, she had a sense of relief, knowing that she and her children would finally be safe and looking forward to seeing her family again. Now, she was filled with concern, not knowing what lay in store for her.

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The man from the county had told her that they would no longer provide her with assistance and that they were sending her back to where she came from. "It was Milwaukee county’s responsibility to provide food for her and her children, not theirs", he had said. Since her parents were so poor, she had no choice but to return.

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She could stay by one of her sisters, who had left home and moved there before, but she would have to find work perhaps as a waitress which she used to do before she got married. She would have time to make plans on the six-hour train ride.

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Right now, all she could think about was the fact that she and her children were cold and hungry. They had left home hours earlier to drive the seven miles to the station with the man from the county. Her mother had managed to provide them each with a small bowl of oatmeal but it was almost noon now.

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The man from the county had promised to give them food for the trip and she hoped that the train would hurry up so that they could get warm and that she could give her children something to eat.

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The train finally arrived and she managed to drag the cardboard suitcase with all of her worldly possessions with one hand and her children with the other up the steps into the passenger car. Suddenly she remembered the food and called out to the man who had brought her there, "Where is the food that you promised us?"

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Almost as an after thought, he handed her a package wrapped up in a brown paper bag. With all of her other concerns, she hadn’t noticed that he was holding it as they waited for the train. She somehow was able to hold on to that too as she guided her two children to their seats.

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As the train pulled out of the station, she noticed that a young woman with two small children had settled into the seats across from them. The woman was well dressed with a fur collar on her coat. Her children were well dressed too in warm winter coats unlike her own children who only had light well-worn jackets. The conductor had helped the woman to put her large suitcase into the overhead compartment but she kept a smaller bag on the floor by her feet.

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As the train moved along, the woman seated across from them reached into the bag and started to remove food for herself and for her children. She even had cloth napkins for them to eat off of. There were biscuits with butter and honey, fried chicken and even bananas for dessert. Her own children couldn’t help but notice this wonderful feast that was being devoured nearby and cried out that they were hungry too.

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The woman decided to find out what the man from the county had provided for their lunch so she began to unwrap the package that he had given her. To her surprise and dismay, she quickly saw that it contained only a loaf of day old bread and not even a knife to cut it with. The woman had no choice but to tear off pieces from the loaf and hand them to her children.

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At first the children protested and asked why they couldn’t have what the family across from them had. The woman tried to explain that the stale bread was all that they had but the children did not understand. Eventually, however, hunger won out and the children began to chew, hungrily, on the pieces of dry bread.

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Now it was the young mother who sat across from them, whose turn it was to take notice, She saw the two children in ragged coats eating stale chunks of bread while her own children were happily munching on fried chicken and biscuits. At last, she couldn’t stand it any longer so she took the bananas away from her own children and handed them to the children seated across from her.

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Greedily, the recipients began stuffing the bananas into their little mouths. Their mother was too amazed to even say thank you, but large tears began rolling down her cheeks forming a huge wet spot on the front of her dress.

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The story of the woman and her two small children continues several years later back in Milwaukee. She has remarried and the children are now teenagers. It is in the depths of The Great Depression, her husband has lost his job and they are struggling to survive.

Rags Bottles and Paper

The winter Coat

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