Christmas On Wheels - Willis Boyd Allen

President Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in

Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years. But you can stop

them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let

voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for fair elections.

Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words.

When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated. For Lauren even,

like your efforts are futile and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people,

only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine.

Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder

for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations,

because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite effort.

In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the

first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet

first street talent. Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free.

Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip.

President Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal

enough seats in Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years.

But you can stop them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level

playing field and let voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st.

In at every open door, filling the air with a grey compound of dust and fine snow,

when passengers trample up and down the long platform, waiting impatiently for their trains,

when newsboys wander about with disconsolate red faces, hands in pockets and bundles of

unsolved papers under their ragged and shivering arms, when in general humankind presents itself

as altogether a frozen forlorn discouraged and hopeless race, condemned to be swept about

on the nipping dusty wind like Francesca and her lover at the rate of 30 miles an hour,

then the station becomes positively unindurable. So thought Bob Estabook as he paced to and

throw in the Boston and Albany Depot traveling bag in hand on just such a night as I have described.

Beside him locomotives puffed and plunged and backed on the shining rails as if they too felt

compelled to trot up and down to keep themselves warm and in even a tolerably good humor.

Just my luck, Groud Bob, with a misanthropic glare at a loud voiced family who were passing,

Christmas coming, two jolly brightened parties and an oratorial throne up, and here I am,

I fired off to San Francisco, so much for being junior member of a law firm.

Wonder what, here the ruffled current of his meditations ran plump against a rock,

and as suddenly diverged from his former course. The rock was no less than a young person who at

that moment approached with a grey haired man and inquired the way to the ticket office.

Just beyond the waiting room on the right, replied Bob, pointing to the office,

and lifting his hat courteously in response to the lady's question.

He watched them with growing interest as they followed his directions and stood before the

lighted window. The two silhouettes were decidedly out of the common. The voice whose delicate

tone still lingered pleasantly about Mr. Robert Esther Brooks, fastidious ears, was an individual

voice as distinguishable from any other, he remembered, as was the owner's bright face,

the little fur collar beneath it, the daintily gloved hands, and the pretty brown traveling suit.

Dignified old fellow, mused Bob irrelevantly, as the couple moved toward the train gates,

probably her father, perhaps salo by George they're going on my car.

With which breath of summer in his winter of discontent,

the young man proceeded to finish his cigar, consult his watch, and as the last warning bell rang,

step upon the platform of the already moving Pullman. It must be admitted that as he entered,

he gave an expectant glance down the aisle of the car, but the somber curtains hanging from

ceiling to floor, told no tales. To sleepy to speculate, and to learn it in the marvelous acoustic

properties of a sleeping car, to engage the porter in conversation on the subject,

he found his birth, arranged himself for the night with a nonchalance of an old traveler,

and laying his head upon his vibrating atom of a pillow, was soon plunged into a dream at least

fifty miles long. Two, it was snowing and snowing hard, moreover it had been snowing all night,

and all the afternoon before. The wind rioted furiously over the broad Missouri plains,

alternately building up huge castles of snow, and throwing them down again like a fretful child,

overtaking the belated teamster on his homeward journey, clutching him with his icy hand,

and leaving him buried in a tomb spotless as the fairest marble. Howling, shrieking,

racing madly to and fro, never out of breath, always the same tireless, pitiless, awful power.

Rocks, fields, sometimes even forests were blotted out of the landscape.

Amir hyphen upon the broad white page lay the western bound train held fast by the soft,

but firm hand. The fires in the locomotives, there were two of them, had been suffered to go out,

the fuel in the tenders was exhausted, and the great creatures waited silently together,

left alone in the storm, while the snow drifted higher and higher upon their patient backs.

When Bob had wait that morning to find the tempest more furious than ever,

and the train stuck fast in a huge snow bank, his first thought was of dismay at the possible

detention in the narrow limits of the Pullman, which seemed much colder than it had before.

His next was to wonder how the change of fortune would affect Gertrude Raymond. Of course,

he had long ago become acquainted with the brown travelling suit and fur collar. Of course,

there had been numerous little services for him to perform for her, and the old gentleman,

who had indeed proved to be her father. Bob had already begun to dread the end of the journey.

He had gone to his birth the night before, wishing that San Francisco were ten days from Boston

instead of six. Providence, having taken him at his word, and indicated that the journey would be

of at least that duration, if not more, he was disposed, like no few of his fellow mortals,

to grumble. Once more, he became misentropic. There's Miss Raymond now, he growled to himself,

knocking his head savagely against the upper birth in his attempt to look out through the frosty

pain, sitting over against the aisle day after day with her kid gloves and all that. Nice enough,

of course, recalling one or two spirited conversations where hours had slipped by like minutes,

but confoundedly useless, like the rest of them. If she were like mother now, there be no trouble.

She'd take care of herself, but as it is, the whole car will be turned upside down for her today,

for fear she'll freeze or starve or spoil her complexion or something.

Here, Bob turned an extremely cold shoulder on the window, and having performed a sort of

horizontal toilet, emerged from his birth, his hair on end, and his face expressive of utter

defiance to the world in general, and contempt of fashionable young ladies in particular.

At that moment, Miss Raymond appeared in the aisle, sweet and rosy as a June morning,

her cheeks glowing and her eyes sparkling with fun.

Good morning, Mr. Estherbrook, she said demurally, settling the fur collar about her neck.

Bob endeavored to look dignified and was conscious of failure.

Good morning, he replied with some stiffness and a shiver which took him by surprise.

It was cold, jumping out of that warm birth. I understand we must stay,

but don't let me detain you, she added with a slight glance at his hair.

Bob turned and marched off solemnly to the masculine end of the car, washed in ice water,

completed his toilet, and came back refreshed. Breakfast was formally served as usual,

and then a council of war was held. Conductor, engineers, and breakmen being consulted,

and inventories taken, it was found that while food was abundant, the stock of wood in the bins

would not last till noon. There were twelve railroad men and thirty-five passengers on board,

some twenty of the latter being immigrants in a second class behind the two polements.

The little company, gathered in the snow-bound car, looked blankly at each other,

some of them instinctively drawing their wraps more tightly about their shoulders,

as if they already felt the approaching chill. It was miles to the nearest station in either direction.

Above, below, on all sides, was the white blur of tumultuous, wind-lashed snow.

The silence was broken pleasantly. Once more, Bob felt the power of those clear, sweet domes.

The men must make up a party to hunt for wood, she said. While you're gone,

we women will do what we can for those who are left. The necessity for immediate action was evident,

and, without further words, the council broke up to obey her suggestion. A dozen men,

looking like amateur Esquimo, and floundering up to their armpits at the first step,

started off through the drifts. One of the trainmen, who knew the line of the road,

thoroughly, was sure they must be near a certain clump of trees where plenty of wood could be obtained.

Taking the precaution to move in single line, one of the engineers,

a broad-shouldered six-footer, leading the way and steering by compass,

they were soon out of sight. As they struck off at right angles to the track,

Bob thought he recognized a face, pressed close to the pain, and watching them anxiously,

but he could not be sure. Two hours later, the men appeared once more,

some staggering under huge logs, some with axes, some with bundles of lighter boughs for

kindling. In another five minutes, smoke was going up cheerily from the whole line of cars,

where the trees had proved to be less than a quarter of a mile distant, and the supply would be

plentiful before night. When Bob Estabrook stamped into his own car, hugging up a big armful of wood,

he was a different looking fellow from the trim young lawyer who was wanted to stand before the

jury seats in the Boston Courthouse. He had on a pair of immense blue yarned mittens,

loaned by a kindly breakman, his face was scratched with refractory twigs,

his eyebrows were frosted, his mustache, and icy caret. The average tramp might well have

hesitated to be for acknowledging Ken ship with him. His eyes roved through the length of a car,

as it had that first night in the depot. She was not there. He was as anxious as a boy for her praise.

Guess I'll take it into the next car, he said apologetically to the nearest passengers,

there's more coming just behind. She was not in the second woman. Of course, she wasn't in the

baggage car. Was it possible? He entered the third and last car, recoiling just a bit at the

odor of crowded and unclean poverty which met him at the door. Sure enough, there she sat, his idle

fashionable type of inutility, with one frowsy child upon the seat beside her,

two very rumpled looking boys in front, and a baby with terracotta hair in her arms.

Somehow the baby's hair against the fur collar didn't look so badly as you would expect either.

She seemed to be singing it to sleep and kept on with her soft crooning as she glanced up over

the tangled red locks at snowy bob and his arm full of wood, with a look in her eyes that would

have sent him cheerfully to Alaska for more had there been need. A few seats off, I ought to say,

her father was talking kindly and earnestly to a ruff-looking man and his wife,

the latter of whom wore the dear old gentleman's cloak. Fathers and daughters are apt to be

pretty much alike in these things, you see? Three. With the cheerful heat of the fires,

the kind offices of nearly all the well-dressed people to the poorer ones, for they were not slow,

these kid-bloved Pullman passengers, to follow Miss Raymond's example, the day wore on quietly

and not unpleasantly toward its clothes. Then someone suddenly remembered that it was Christmas Eve.

Dear me, cried Miss Raymond, delightedly, reaching round the baby to clap her hands,

let's have a Christmas party. A few sighed and shook their heads as they thought of their own

home firesides, one or two smiled indulgently on the small enthusiast, several chimed in at once.

Conductor and baggage-master were consulted, and the spacious baggage car,

specially engaged for the occasion, the originator of the scheme triumphantly announced.

Preparations commenced without delay. All the young people put their heads together in one corner,

and many were the explosions of laughter as the program grew. Trunks were visited by their owners

and small articles abstracted therefrom to serve as gifts for the emigrants and trainmen,

to whose particular entertainment the evening was by common consent to be devoted.

Just as the lamps were lighted in the train, our hero, who had disappeared early in the afternoon,

returned, dragging after him a small stunted pine tree, which seemed to have strayed away from

its native forest on purpose for the celebration. On being admitted to the grand hall, Bob further

added to the decorations a few strings of a queer mossy sort of evergreen. Hereupon, a very young

man with light eyebrows, who had hid the tube in inconspicuous, suddenly appeared from the depths

of a battered trunk, over the edge of which he had for some time been bent like a siphon,

and with a beaming face produced a box of veritable tiny wax candles. He was on the road, he explained,

for a large wholesale toy shop, and these were samples. He guessed he could make it all right with

the firm. Of course, the affair was a great success. I have no space to tell of the sheltered walk

that Bob constructed of rugs from car to car, of the beautified interior of the old baggage car

draped with shawls and brightened with bits of ribbon, of the mute wonder of the poor emigrants,

a number of whom had but just arrived from Germany, and could not speak a word of English,

of their unbounded delight when the glistening tree was disclosed, and the cries of Vainoxbaum,

from their rumpled children, whose faces waked into a glow of blissful recollection at the sight.

Ah, if you could have seen the pretty gifts, the brave little pine, which all the managers

agreed couldn't possibly have been used, had it been an inch taller, the improvised teblow,

wherein Bob successively personated an organ grinder, a pug dog, and hamlet, amid thunders

of applause from the breakmen and engineers, then the passenger sang a simple Christmas Carol,

Miss Raymond leading with her pure soprano, and Bob chiming in like the diapason of an organ.

Just as the last words died away, a sudden hush came over the audience,

could it be an illusion, or did they hear them muffled but sweet notes of a church bell faintly

sounding without? Tears came into the eyes of some of the roughest of the immigrants, as they

listened, and thought of a wee bell-free somewhere in the fatherland, where the Christmas bells were

calling to prayers that night. The sound of the bells ceased, and the mariment went on, while the

young man, with eyebrows lighter than ever, but with radiant face, let himself quietly into the car

unnoticed. It had been his own thought to creep out into the storm, clear away the snow from

the nearest locomotive bell, and ring it while the gayity was at its height. All this, indeed,

there was, and more, but to Bob, the joy and sweetness of the evening, centered in one bright face.

What mattered if the wind roared and moaned about the lonely snow-drifted train,

while he could look into those brown eyes and listen to that voice for whose every tone he

was fast learning to watch? Well, the blockade was raised, and the long railroad trip finished at

last, but two of its passengers, at least, have agreed to enter upon a still longer journey.

Four. She says it all began when he came staggering in with his armful of wood and his blue

mittens, and he, he doesn't care at all when it began. He only realizes the joy that has come to him

and believes that after a certain day next May, it will be Christmas for him all the year round.

End of Christmas on Wheels by Willis Boyd Allen. President Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting

on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in Congress to raid the next election and wield

unchecked power for two more years, but you can stop them by voting yes by April 21st.

Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let voters decide not politicians.

Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for Fair Elections.

Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words.

When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated, for Lauren even.

Like your efforts are futile, and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people,

only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine.

Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to fix all that, and right now you can try Zippercruder

for free at zippercruder.com slash zip. With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations,

because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word.

In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder get a quality candidate within the

first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four, 40, or 400 people, get ready to meet

first rate talent. Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try Zippercruder for free.

Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally, that zippercruder.com slash zip.

Warning, the following Zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with F words.

When you're hiring, we at Zippercruder know you can feel frustrated, for Lauren even.

Like your efforts are futile, and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people,

only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, Zippercruder figured out how to

fix all that. And right now, you can try Zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip.

With Zippercruder, you can forget your frustrations, because we find the right people for your roles

fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on Zippercruder

get a quality candidate within the first day. Fantastic. So whether you need to hire four,

40, or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to zippercruder.com slash zip

to try Zippercruder for free. Don't forget that zippercruder.com slash zip. Finally,

that zippercruder.com slash zip.