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Homeless at 20, She Bought a $10 Train Depot—What She Found in the Ticket Booth Shocked Everyone — Transcript

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0:00She was 20 and homeless. No family who
0:02would open the door for her. No plan
0:05beyond the bus station bench. Just a
0:07small canvas duff and $10 she'd folded
0:09into the inside pocket of her peacacoat.
0:12And with that $10, she bought an
0:14abandoned train depot at the end of a
0:16forgotten branch line in the Alagany
0:18foothills of central Pennsylvania in a
0:20township so small it had stopped
0:22appearing on the state highway map in
0:241972.
0:26The roof over the freight room had
0:28partly fallen in. The waiting room
0:30windows had been boarded for 40 years.
0:34The county said the building had been
0:35closed since 1958 and was scheduled for
0:38demolition the following spring. But
0:41what nobody knew was that beneath the
0:43floor of the old ticket booth in a
0:45sealed compartment that hadn't been
0:46opened in over 65 years was something
0:49that would change her life forever.
0:52Before we continue, if stories like this
0:54mean something to you, hit subscribe and
0:57tell us in the comments where you're
0:59watching from. We love seeing how far
1:01these stories travel. When Howerin came
1:04from a family that had worked the
1:05railroads of Eastern Pennsylvania for as
1:08long as the railroads had been there to
1:10work, her grandfather Patrick Howerin
1:12had been a breakman on the Pennsylvania
1:14Railroads Pocono Division from 1949
1:17until the line went bankrupt in 1976.
1:21and then for Conrail until he retired in
1:231981.
1:25He had grown up the youngest of seven
1:27children in a coal patch house in
1:28Lacawana County and had quit school at
1:3115 to take a job on the section gang
1:33because his father had died of black
1:35lung and the family had needed the
1:37wages. He had ridden the caboosees of
1:39freight trains through every kind of
1:41Pennsylvania weather for 32 years. He
1:44had a flat topped silver pocket watch on
1:46a worn leather cord that he had carried
1:48in the breast pocket of his denim work
1:50shirt every day of his working life set
1:53to railroad time accurate to within 10
1:55seconds a year. W's father, Sha Howerin,
1:58had grown up listening to his father's
2:00stories at the kitchen table in the
2:02small Scranton Row house where the
2:04family lived. He had told everyone he
2:06was going to do something different with
2:08his life, something that did not involve
2:10diesel fuel and frostbitten hands. And
2:13for 2 years after high school, he had
2:14worked in an insurance office in
2:16downtown Scranton wearing a tie. Then on
2:20a Monday morning in 1998, he had walked
2:22into the office, set his name plate on
2:24his desk, walked back out, and applied
2:27for a job on the Conrail Track
2:29maintenance crew. He told Padrick that
2:31night that the office had felt like
2:33wearing somebody else's coat. Padrick
2:36had nodded and slid the silver pocket
2:38watch across the kitchen table and told
2:40his son to keep it on him because a
2:42railroad man should always know what
2:44time it is. Shaun Howerin married a
2:47woman named Mary Doherty in the spring
2:49of 2000 and Wyn was born the following
2:52autumn. For the first 12 years of Win's
2:55life, her father came home every evening
2:57with grease on his hands and the sweet
2:59diesel smell of the railards in his
3:01hair. He taught her how the switches
3:04worked. He taught her the names of the
3:06different kinds of freight cars, box
3:08cars and gondilas and hoppers and tank
3:10cars and reefers. He taught her how to
3:12read a schedule. He taught her that a
3:15railroad was the most honest kind of
3:17work there was because steel does not
3:19lie and gravity does not lie and a train
3:21will arrive at a place at a particular
3:23time or it will not. And there is
3:26nothing else to discuss. He died in
3:29March of W's 12th year. a freight
3:32derailment on a cold morning in the cut
3:34north of Pittston. The Conrail incident
3:37report said the cause was a broken rail
3:39in a frozen tie plate. Shawn had been on
3:42the ground crew responding to the
3:43derailment when a second car shifted off
3:46the rails above him. Padre outlived his
3:48son by 14 months and then died on a
3:51Sunday morning in his armchair in the
3:53rowhouse, the silver pocket watch open
3:56on the table beside him. Wyn was the
3:59only family left to inherit it. She put
4:02it on a leather cord around her neck the
4:04day after Patrick's funeral, and she had
4:06worn it every day since. Her mother,
4:09Mary, did not handle the loss well. She
4:12had loved Shawn with the kind of total
4:15devotion that some women bring to a
4:17single man in their lives, and when he
4:19was gone, she could not find a way to
4:22continue without him. For the first
4:24year, she barely left the house. In the
4:27second year, she met a man at a grief
4:29support group named Brendan Collie. And
4:32within 6 months, she had married him,
4:34and within 12 months, Brendan had moved
4:36into the rowhouse, and Wyn had begun to
4:38understand that she was no longer
4:40welcome in the only home she had ever
4:42known. Brendan was not violent. He was
4:45simply cold, the kind of cold that fills
4:48a room slowly until there is no warm
4:50corner left. And Mary had stopped
4:52defending Win against him by the time
4:54Wyn was 16. Wyn got a job at 16 at a
4:58small diner near the old DL andW rail
5:01yards in Scranton, a place called Veras,
5:04run by a Polish American woman in her
5:07early 60s named Vera Koshusco.
5:10Vera had been widowed twice, once by a
5:13steel worker and once by a yard
5:15switchman. And she ran the diner the way
5:17she ran her own life, with strong coffee
5:20and few wasted words and an unspoken
5:22understanding that the people who came
5:24through her door were carrying things
5:26they did not always want to talk about.
5:29She hired Wyn for the buser shift on a
5:31Tuesday afternoon and never asked a
5:33personal question for the first 6
5:35months. By the time she finally asked
5:37one, Wyn was ready to answer it, and the
5:40answering took nearly 4 hours and a
5:42whole pot of coffee, in the kind of
5:44patient listening that is harder to find
5:46than gold. Vera knew Padrick's name when
5:49Wyn mentioned him. She had served him
5:52eggs every Saturday morning for 19 years
5:54before he retired. She knew Shawn, too.
5:58She had brought a casserole to the wake.
6:00When she put these pieces together, she
6:02looked at Wyn across the for Mica table
6:04in the back booth and said, "Then this
6:07booth is yours whenever you need it."
6:10"You hear me, Howerin girl?" When had
6:13heard her? She finished high school
6:15living mostly out of her duffel bag.
6:18Some nights at home in the rowhouse,
6:20some nights on the back bench in the
6:22diner kitchen after Vera had locked up.
6:25Some nights at a friend's apartment when
6:27the friend's parents weren't paying
6:28attention. She graduated in June and
6:31turned 18 the same week and got a second
6:34job at a diner on Wyoming Avenue and
6:37tried to save what she could. The pocket
6:40watch ticked against her collarbone
6:42every day. She thought of it as her
6:44grandfather still walking the line
6:46beside her. In February of her 20th
6:49year, she came home from a closing shift
6:51at the diner to find a cardboard box on
6:53the front porch of the rowhouse. Inside
6:55the box were her clothes, her textbooks,
6:58the photograph of her father in his
7:00Conrail jacket, and a few pieces of
7:02jewelry that had belonged to her
7:03father's mother. On top of the box, set
7:06carefully in the center, was the silver
7:09pocket watch, which meant that her
7:10stepfather had gone into her room and
7:13taken it from her dresser drawer, where
7:14she kept it on the nights she did not
7:16wear it, and put it on top of the box so
7:18she could not pretend she had been
7:20forgotten.
7:21Taped to the front door was a folded
7:23sheet of lined notebook paper. The
7:26handwriting was her mother. It said,
7:29"When Brendan and I have decided this is
7:32the best thing for everyone. You are an
7:35adult now. We need our own space. Please
7:38do not come back tonight or any night.
7:40Please do not call."
7:42Mom
7:44read the note twice. She tried the front
7:47door. It was locked. She tried the back
7:50door, the side door, the basement door
7:53from the alley. Locked. All of them
7:56locked. She picked up the cardboard box
7:59and hung the silver pocket watch back
8:01around her neck on its leather cord and
8:03walked the 11 blocks to Vera's diner in
8:05the cold, and she did not cry because
8:08crying was a private weather and not the
8:11right answer to that particular kind of
8:13cold.
8:14Vera took one look at her face and
8:16turned the open sign to closed and made
8:18her sit down in the back booth and
8:20brought her a plate of eggs and home
8:22fries and a mug of coffee. She did not
8:24ask any questions until Wyn had eaten.
8:28Then she asked one win told her. Vera
8:31nodded once and said, "You stay with me
8:34until you figure out what comes next.
8:36I've got a spare room above the diner
8:38that's been empty since my second
8:40husband died. It's yours." Winn lived in
8:44that small upstairs room above Vera's
8:46diner for 2 months. Vera refused to let
8:49her pay rent. She said the rent was Win
8:52working the morning shift Tuesday
8:54through Saturday, which Win would have
8:56done for free anyway. Vera fed her three
8:59meals a day. She washed Winn's clothes
9:01in the small machine in the diner
9:03basement. She left a fresh bar of
9:06lavender soap on the bathroom shelf
9:07every Sunday because Wyn had once
9:09mentioned in passing that her
9:11grandmother had used lavender soap. It
9:14was the kindest 2 months of Win's life.
9:17But Win knew she could not stay forever.
9:20Vera was nearly 62 and the diner was
9:23getting harder for her to run alone and
9:25Win did not want to become a person who
9:27needed somebody else to carry her. She
9:30started looking for a place of her own.
9:32An apartment in Scranton was out of the
9:34question on diner wages. She looked at
9:37rooms for rent in the rougher
9:38neighborhoods and could not bring
9:40herself to take any of them. Then one
9:42evening at the back booth with a cup of
9:44coffee and the diner's old laptop that
9:46Vera had set up for the customers to
9:48use. She typed cheapest property
9:50Pennsylvania into a search engine just
9:52to see what came up. The fifth result
9:55was a county surplus auction page from a
9:57place called Penn Forest Township in the
9:59Alageney foothills north of Bedford. The
10:02page listed 11 abandoned buildings being
10:05sold for nominal fees ahead of a planned
10:07demolition, a graange hall, a one- room
10:10schoolhouse, a crearyy, a blacksmith
10:13shop, a dance pavilion, and near the
10:16bottom of the list, a building described
10:19as former Penn Central/PRR
10:22Branchline Depot, Whitlock Junction,
10:25abandoned 1958, scheduled for demolition
10:29spring of next year. The price was $10.
10:33Winn sat very still and read the listing
10:36three times. A train depot. She showed
10:39the listing to Vera the next morning.
10:41Vera read it carefully through her
10:43reading glasses, looked up at Win and
10:46said, "Halerin girl, that's the line
10:49your grandfather wrote in 1953 and 1954
10:53when he was on temporary assignment to
10:55the Bedford branch. He used to tell me
10:57about Whitlock Junction." He said the
11:00station agent there made the best coffee
11:02on the division. Vera paused. He also
11:06said it was the loneliest stop on the
11:08line. He said you could stand on the
11:10platform at midnight and hear the river
11:12but not a single other thing. Winn
11:15touched the pocket watch through the
11:17front of her sweater. Vera, I think I'm
11:20going to go look at it. I think you are
11:22too pet. Take the bus. I'll write you
11:25down for 2 days off. The bus from
11:27Scranton to Bedford took most of a day
11:29with two transfers. The final leg was a
11:32county shuttle that ran twice a week and
11:34dropped her at a crossroads four miles
11:36from the township office in a part of
11:39the Alagany foothills where the road
11:40wound through narrow valleys of bare
11:42winter hardwood and the air smelled like
11:45wet leaves and wood smoke. She walked
11:48the four miles. The pocket watch ticked
11:51against her collarbone the whole way.
11:53The Penn Forest Township office was a
11:55small frame building beside a closed
11:57general store on a single main street
11:59with seven other buildings on it.
12:02Inside, a woman in her 50s named
12:04Dorothia Kratzer sat behind a counter
12:07with a mug of tea and a stack of
12:09property records. Dorotha had been the
12:12township clerk for 19 years. You hear
12:16about the depot? Dorothia said, "Yes,
12:18ma'am.
12:20You know, it's been closed since 58. The
12:24roof over the freight room is half gone.
12:26The track was pulled up in ' 61. There's
12:29no power and no water. The county is
12:32going to take it down in March. Yes,
12:34ma'am. I have $10.
12:38Dorothia looked at her for a long
12:39moment. Then she pulled a deed book from
12:42a shelf behind her and turned to a page
12:44that had been waiting for years. Sign
12:47here and here and here.
12:50Win signed Win Mary Howerin in the
12:52careful slanted hand her grandfather had
12:55taught her. Dorothia took the $10 bill,
12:59folded it once, tucked it into a metal
13:01cash box, and stamped the deed with a
13:03brass stamp that made a soft flat sound.
13:07It's yours. It's a mile and a half down
13:10the old rail bed if you walk it. You
13:12want a ride? My husband's got the truck
13:14out front. The depot stood in a clearing
13:16where the railed widened into what had
13:18once been the Whitlock Junction passing
13:20siding. It was a singlestory building of
13:23dark red board and batten siding faded
13:25to the color of dried clay with a wide
13:28overhanging eve that ran the length of
13:30the platform side, a peaked shingle roof
13:32with a small bay window projecting
13:34toward where the tracks had once been,
13:36and a tall brick chimney rising from the
13:38back wall. The bay window was the ticket
13:41office where the station agent had once
13:44watched for incoming trains. The waiting
13:46room door was on the right, the freight
13:48room on the left. Above the bay window,
13:51painted in faded white letters on a dark
13:53green board, was the original sign,
13:56Witlock, JCT, Penn RR. The platform was
14:01still there, made of weathered boards
14:03greened with moss. The rail bed beyond
14:06it was a long straight scar in the woods
14:09where the ties and the rails had been
14:11pulled up 60 years ago. The ballast
14:13still showing in patches where the
14:15leaves had not yet covered it. Dorothia
14:17unlocked the padlock on the waiting room
14:19door and handed win the key. There's a
14:22bench inside that'll do for sleeping if
14:24you've got a sleeping bag. I'll come
14:26back in 2 days. She drove away in the
14:30green pickup and Win was alone in the
14:32clearing with the depot and the silence
14:34and the long empty railed running away
14:36into the trees. She stepped inside. The
14:40waiting room was a single long room with
14:42a slate floor scuffed soft by 60 years
14:45of feet, dark wainescoated walls, a
14:48wooden bench running along one wall, a
14:50black pot-bellied stove in the corner,
14:53and at the far end of the room, the
14:54closed wooden door of the ticket booth
14:56set into the wall beneath the bay
14:58window. The air smelled like cold cinder
15:01and old paper, and the faint sweet smell
15:04of pine boards. Winn walked the length
15:07of the room slowly. She put her hand on
15:09the cold iron of the pot-bellied stove.
15:12She put her hand on the wooden bench.
15:15She put her hand on the closed door of
15:16the ticket booth and turned the brass
15:18knob. The door swung open into the small
15:21ticket booth itself, maybe 6 ft square.
15:24A high wooden agent's desk faced the bay
15:27window. A tall wooden stool stood behind
15:30the desk. A row of pigeon holes was
15:33built into the wall above the desk for
15:34way bills and receipts. A small iron
15:37safe with a combination dial sat on the
15:39floor in the corner. A chalkboard was
15:42mounted to the wall for writing arrival
15:44and departure times. The last entry
15:46still ghosted in faint white chalk. 6:42
15:51p.m. eastbound.
15:54Final
15:56Winn sat down on the wooden stool behind
15:58the desk and looked out through the bay
16:00window at the empty rail bed, and she
16:02thought about her grandfather, who had
16:04sat on a stool exactly like this one in
16:06a depot, exactly like this one when he
16:09was younger than she was now. And she
16:11thought about the silver pocket watch
16:13around her neck, which had been kept on
16:15railroad time for 50 years by a man who
16:17would have understood exactly why she
16:20had walked four miles in the cold to sit
16:22on this stool. She slid off the stool to
16:25look at the floor underneath it. The
16:27floorboards in the ticket booth were old
16:29pine, the same as the rest of the
16:31building, but the boards directly
16:34beneath the stool were a slightly
16:35different color than the surrounding
16:37boards. Darker, as if they had been
16:40replaced at some point, and had aged
16:43differently.
16:45Wind knelt down and ran her fingertips
16:47along the seam where the darker boards
16:48met the lighter ones. She felt a gap, a
16:52deliberate gap, smooth cut, the kind of
16:55gap that does not happen by accident.
16:58She went back out to the freight room
17:00and found a piece of flat iron that
17:02might once have been part of a switch
17:03lever, and she came back and used it to
17:06pry up the edge of the dark boards. They
17:09came up together in a small section
17:11about 18 in square, hinged on a single
17:14pair of leather hinges that had hardened
17:16with age, but had not broken. Underneath
17:19was a small wooden compartment fitted
17:21into the floor joists. Inside the
17:23compartment, lying on a piece of old oil
17:25cloth, was a tin lock box and a sealed
17:28envelope and a folded American flag.
17:31Wind lifted them out one at a time. The
17:35tin lock box was heavy, the kind of
17:37small fireproof box a station agent
17:39might have used to keep the day's cash
17:42before the night train. The envelope was
17:45thick paper. The ink on the front faded
17:47brown. addressed in a careful slanted
17:50hand to whoever finds this. The flag was
17:54a small 48 star flag neatly folded in
17:57the triangular military fold dating it
18:00to before 1959.
18:02She opened the lock box first. Inside in
18:05neat rows were bundled banknotes,
18:08oldstyle United States currency from the
18:101930s, 1940s, and 1950s 20s and50s, and
18:14a small stack of hundreds held together
18:17with paper bands that crumbled at the
18:19edges when she touched them. She counted
18:22slowly. The total was $9,320.
18:27Beneath the bills was a small leather
18:29pouch. Inside the pouch were 11 silver
18:32dollars, each one wrapped in tissue
18:34paper, and a railroad pocket watch, a
18:37Hamilton 992B in a silver hunting case,
18:41the standard time piece of every
18:43Pennsylvania railroad agent and
18:44conductor, identical in make and model
18:47to the one that had hung around her
18:49grandfather's neck for 32 years.
18:52She set the pouch carefully aside and
18:55opened the envelope. The letter was
18:57written on heavy cream paper. the ink
19:00brown with age, but the handwriting
19:01clear and careful. The hand of a man who
19:04had spent his life filling out way bills
19:06and timets in a small, neat slant. To
19:09whoever finds this, my name is Harlon
19:13Boer. I have been the station agent at
19:15Whitlock Junction on the Bedford branch
19:18of the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1932
19:21until today, the 17th of June, 1958.
19:25The branch line is being closed at the
19:27end of this week. The last passenger
19:29train will run on Friday evening. After
19:32that, the rails will be pulled and the
19:34building will be locked and there will
19:37be no reason for anyone to come here
19:38again.
19:40I am 64 years old and I have no
19:43children. My wife Eleanor passed in the
19:46influenza spring of 1949.
19:49I have spent my life at this small
19:51junction watching trains come in from
19:53Bedford in the morning and go out toward
19:55Pittsburgh at night. and I have known
19:58every regular passenger by name. And I
20:00have made a pot of coffee every morning
20:02at 5:00 for the breakmen on the through
20:05freights, even though it was not part of
20:07my duties. I considered it my duty
20:10anyway. Coffee is a small kindness, and
20:13a small kindness on a cold morning is
20:16sometimes the difference between a good
20:18day and a hard one.
20:20I have saved a portion of every paycheck
20:23I ever drew in this lock box beneath the
20:26floor of the booth where I have sat for
20:2826 years. I do not trust banks. I lost
20:32what little I had in the failure of the
20:33Bedford Trust in 1933, and I have
20:36nowhere else to put what I have saved.
20:39The silver dollars are from Eleanor's
20:42family. The Hamilton watch was issued to
20:45me by the railroad in 1934, and I'm
20:48leaving it behind because I do not want
20:50to carry railroad time after Friday. If
20:53you are reading this letter, you came
20:56into this depot after I am gone. Maybe
21:00long after, maybe the building has been
21:02forgotten. Maybe you came looking for
21:04shelter or quiet or a place to begin
21:07again. Whatever brought you here, I want
21:09you to know that the depot has been
21:11waiting for you. A small station is a
21:14kind of patient thing. It waits for the
21:17train and then it waits for the next
21:18train and then eventually when there are
21:21no more trains, it waits for whoever
21:23will come next. I have been the one
21:26waiting at Whitlock Junction since 1932.
21:29I am leaving the waiting to you now.
21:32Take what is in this box. It is for you.
21:36The flag is from Elellaner's brother,
21:38who was a breakman on the Eerie and was
21:40killed in a coupling accident in 1944.
21:44Keep it folded the way I have folded it.
21:46Be kind to the building. The coffee
21:49tastes better here than anywhere on the
21:51division. I do not know why, and I have
21:54stopped trying to find out.
21:57Harlon Boer, station agent, Whitlock
22:00Junction, June 17th, 1958.
22:05Wyn read the letter twice. Then she
22:08folded it carefully along its old
22:10creases and placed it back in its
22:11envelope and sat very still on the floor
22:14of the ticket booth with the banknotes
22:16and the silver dollars and the Hamilton
22:18pocket watch in her lap and the small
22:20folded flag beside her.
22:23She did not cry. Her grandfather had not
22:26been a man who cried, and she had
22:28inherited his hands and his watch and
22:30also his particular kind of restraint.
22:33But she said aloud to the empty depot
22:36and to whoever might be listening,
22:38"Thank you, Mr. Boer. I will try. If
22:42you're enjoying this story, take a
22:44second and subscribe. It helps us keep
22:46making stories like this one. And tell
22:49us in the comments what is the smallest
22:52kindness someone has ever shown you on a
22:54cold morning." The rebuilding took
22:57patient months. Wyn spent the first week
23:00walking the depot in daylight and making
23:02a list in a small pocket notebook of
23:04everything that needed doing. The roof
23:06over the freight room had to be reframed
23:08and reshingled before the spring rains.
23:11The bay window had to be reglazed. The
23:14potbellied stove needed its flu cleaned.
23:17The well behind the depot, when
23:19Doroththa brought a county inspector
23:21out, proved to be sound, and with a new
23:24hand pump, it gave cold, clean water
23:26that tasted faintly of iron and stone.
23:29She did not spend Harlon Boer's money
23:31recklessly. She kept most of it in a
23:33lock box at a credit union in Bedford,
23:35and spent it in small, careful amounts.
23:38A bundle of cedar shingles, a bucket of
23:40roofing tar, a secondhand kerosene cook
23:43stove, a proper mattress, a wool
23:46blanket, two pairs of work gloves, a
23:49claw hammer and a handsaw, and a box of
23:51galvanized nails. She learned to shingle
23:54a roof by watching a video on the
23:56library computer in Bedford and by
23:58making mistakes and correcting them. She
24:01learned to hang a new door by asking an
24:03old man at the diner in town, a retired
24:05carpenter named Auggie Klene, who came
24:08out one Saturday with his own tools, and
24:10showed her how to set the hinges. The
24:13people of Pen Forest Township began to
24:15notice her. Dorothia came by every
24:18Wednesday with a thermos of coffee in
24:20the township newsletter. Auggie Klene
24:22came back twice more on Saturdays to
24:24help with the bay window and refused to
24:26let her pay him. A retired Conrail
24:29engineer named Marcus Lynwood, who lived
24:32four miles away in a small cabin and had
24:34heard from Doroththa that a young woman
24:36was reopening the Whitlock Depot, drove
24:39out one afternoon in his old Ford pickup
24:41with a wooden crate of railroad
24:43memorabilia he had been keeping in his
24:44attic for 40 years. Old timets, a brass
24:48conductor's lantern, a Pennsylvania
24:51railroad porcelain mug, a section of
24:53original rail with the date 1928 stamped
24:56into the web. He set the crate on the
24:58platform and said, "These belong here
25:01more than they belong with me." He came
25:04back every other Sunday for the rest of
25:06the year just to drink coffee on the
25:08bench and talk about the old line. Vera
25:11Koshusco drove down from Scranton in the
25:13second month with a carload of things
25:15from Winn's room above the diner,
25:17including a small framed photograph of
25:20Shan Howerin in his Conrail jacket that
25:22Wyn had not been able to bring herself
25:24to look at since the funeral. Vera
25:27stayed for three days. She slept on a
25:29folding cot W had set up in the freight
25:31room. She helped Wyn paint the inside of
25:34the ticket booth a soft cream color that
25:36made the small space feel twice as big.
25:40On the morning she left, she stood
25:41beside her car in the clearing and said,
25:44"Padrick would be proud. Shawn would be
25:46proud. You're a Howerin in the only way
25:49that matters." and she drove back to
25:52Scranton and Wyn sat on the platform
25:54bench for a long time afterward and
25:57finally let herself cry for the first
26:00time since the cold February evening
26:03when she had read the note on the door.
26:06By April, the freight room roof was
26:08tight. By May, the bay window held new
26:13glass. By June, the pot-bellied stove
26:16was cleaned and working, and the waiting
26:18room had a swept slate floor and a fresh
26:21coat of paint and a row of curtains
26:23Doroththa had sewn for the bay window.
26:26Wyn made a small bedroom for herself in
26:28the freight room with the iron cot and
26:30the wool blanket, and she set the framed
26:32photograph of her father on the shelf
26:34above the cot along with her
26:36grandfather's silver pocket watch on its
26:38leather cord. The Hamilton 992B from
26:42Harlland Boer's lockbox. She kept on the
26:44agents desk in the ticket booth, wound
26:46and set to railroad time the way Harlon
26:49would have kept it. She started serving
26:52coffee. It was not a business at first.
26:55It was just a thing she did, the way
26:57Harlon had done it for the breakmen on
26:59the through freights, even though it was
27:00not part of his duties. She kept a
27:02kettle hot on the pot-bellied stove and
27:05a stack of mismatched mugs on the bay
27:07window shelf. And any walker who came
27:09down the old railed, and there were more
27:12than she expected. Hikers and burers and
27:14railroad history enthusiasts and the
27:16occasional lost backpacker could come
27:19into the waiting room and have a cup.
27:21She did not charge. People left small
27:24things instead. A jar of honey, a loaf
27:27of bread, a handful of wild flowers, a
27:30folded $5 bill in a tin she had set on
27:33the bench. By autumn, the depot had
27:36become something it had not been in over
27:3860 years, which was a place where people
27:40stopped on purpose. Marcus Lynwood
27:43brought her a handpainted wooden sign
27:45for the platform that said, "Whitlock
27:48JCT coffee." Dorotha brought a string of
27:52small white lights to hang along the eve
27:54for the winter evenings. Auggie Klene
27:56built her a new bench for the platform
27:58out of reclaimed white oak from a barn
28:00in the next valley. On a clear evening
28:03in late October, Wyn sat on Auggie's new
28:05bench with her grandfather's pocket
28:07watch in one hand, and Harlon Boer's
28:10Hamilton in the other, and watched the
28:12sun go down over the bare ridge of the
28:14foothills. Both watches read exactly the
28:17same time, accurate to the second, set
28:20to railroad time, the way they had been
28:23carried by men who had spent their lives
28:25believing that knowing the time was a
28:27kind of duty to the people who depended
28:30on you to be where you said you would be
28:32when you said you would be there."
28:35She thought about her grandfather,
28:37Padrick, who had ridden caboosees
28:38through every kind of Pennsylvania
28:40weather for 32 years and had never once
28:43been late to work.
28:45She thought about her father, Shawn, who
28:47had walked out of an insurance office
28:49because the coat had felt like somebody
28:51else's, and had gone back to the only
28:53kind of work that had ever felt like
28:55his. She thought about Harlon Boer, who
28:57had served coffee at 5:00 every morning
29:00to breakmen he was not required to
29:02serve, and had hidden a lock box under
29:04the floor of his ticket booth on his
29:06last day at the junction in 1958,
29:09because he had believed that small
29:11kindness was a kind of patience, and
29:13that patience always finds the person it
29:16has been waiting for. and she thought
29:18about her mother, Mary, who had taped a
29:20note to a door because she could not
29:22stand to look at the daughter who
29:23reminded her of the husband she had
29:25lost.
29:27When understood now that her mother had
29:29not meant to push her toward a new life,
29:31her mother had only meant to make her
29:33own grief a little quieter. But
29:35sometimes the doors other people close
29:37are the doors that turn us toward the
29:39doors that have been waiting for us. And
29:41sometimes a cold February evening on a
29:44cold front porch is the same thing as
29:46the long slow whistle of a train coming
29:48in from Bedford at 6:42 in the evening,
29:52calling you toward the place you did not
29:53know you were going. That's the thing
29:56about small stations. A small station
29:59does not stop being a station just
30:01because the trains have stopped coming.
30:03It keeps the schedule in its bones. It
30:05keeps the coffee in its kettle. It keeps
30:08the lock box under the floor of the
30:10booth and the flag folded in its
30:12triangular fold and the silver pocket
30:15watch wound on the desk. All the small,
30:17honest things that the last person who
30:19loved the building sat down before they
30:22turned the key in the door. A small
30:25station waits. It has always waited.
30:30That is what a station is. And when the
30:32next person finally walks down the
30:34railed in the cold, carrying nothing but
30:37a duffel bag and $10 and a watch on a
30:39leather cord, the station does not need
30:42to speak, because stations do not speak.
30:45It only needs to show her the loose
30:47floorboards beneath the stool.
30:50Harlon Boer had waited for Winerin for
30:5265 years without knowing her name.
30:55Patrick had waited for her in the shape
30:57of a flat topped silver pocket watch on
30:59a leather cord. Shawn had waited for her
31:02in the smell of diesel and the names of
31:04freight cars she could still recite by
31:06heart. Vera Koshusco had waited for her
31:09in the back booth of a diner in Scranton
31:11with a fresh pot of coffee and an
31:13unspoken understanding.
31:15Dorothia Kratzer and Auggie Klene and
31:18Marcus Lynwood had been waiting for her,
31:20too. Each in their own quiet
31:22Pennsylvania way, for the young woman
31:24who would walk four miles down a county
31:26road in the cold and sign her name in
31:29her grandfather's slanted hand. When
31:31Howerin was 20 years old and homeless,
31:35she had $10 to her name, and she spent
31:38it on an abandoned train depot in the
31:40Alagany foothills of central
31:41Pennsylvania. It was the best $10 she
31:45ever spent. If this story moved you,
31:48share it with someone who needs to hear
31:50it. And if you loved it, we have
31:52something special for you. 12 brand new
31:55stories never released on YouTube, only
31:58available to the people who support this
32:00channel directly. Each one a full quiet
32:03road story just like this one. You will
32:06find the link in the bio. We poured our
32:09whole hearts into these and we made them
32:12for the people who truly listen. Thank
32:15you for being one of them. See you on
32:18the next quiet road.

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