WIDE MEADOWS: STRANGER LEFT HIS TRAIN AT THE WRONG STOP (A CONTINUING SERIES)

"Who is he?" Mom asked Dad as we made our way back up the stairs.

"He didn't say," Dad replied, scratching his cheek slowly.

"We, he didn't, did he?" Mom remarked, somewhat surprised. "But then, he didn't ask who we were either, did he?" She laughed softly at the strange state of affairs.

Lou and I snuggled down in bed again and talked far into what was left of the night. "He was a fine-looking gentleman, wasn't he? Didn't he talk different, though? Going to sleep in a snowbank to escape the furnace of living'? Did you see the great diamond ring on his finger? May he's a minister, or a doctor. Wonder where he came from? He didn't say, did he?" We drifted off to sleep, contented and pleasantly excited, for there would be something different on the morrow, a stranger in the house to relieve the monotony of our snowbound days.

At breakfast we acted like we were accustomed to the tablecloth and napkins and the best dishes. There was the last jar of strawberry preserves, which we knew Mom had been saving for an occasion. So, this was it! We, accordingly, ate with one hand in our laps, elbows in, knife across plate, please pass, and thank you.

"Nothing like winter in the country to whet one's appetite," the stranger commented, taking a second helping of ham. "Beautiful place you have here. Picturesque. Although somewhat remote, I take it. You don't have many visitors, do you?"

"We haven't seen anyone for a month," Lou volunteered.

The stranger looked pleased, like he was embarking on a new adventure. "And I suppose you don't go anywhere much?"

"We don't even go to school hardly now," I told him.

Mom gave Lou and me a look that suggested the stranger might like to carry on a bit of conversation with the adults.

"Suppose a person did wish to leave, how would be the quickest way out?" he asked.

"How did you get in?" Grandpa countered pleasantly.

"Ah, yes, I neglected to tell you that story, didn't I? I was riding the train that goes though here somewhere and they let me off at the wrong place." He laughed at the big joke and we all laughed with him.

"Well, in a way it was my fault," he explained. "I thought it was Bismarck we were whistling for. Asked the person in the seat next to me and he said it was, so I just got off." He shrugged his shoulders and turned up his palms at the simplicity of it. "Snowing so hard I couldn't tell that it wasn't a town."

"And you wallowed all the way up the tracks through this snow to our place?" Mom marveled.

"Seems like a meant thing, doesn't it?" the stranger agreed, looking sober.

Dad and Grandpa got ready to leave the house to feed the cattle.

"Could I help you, sirs?" the stranger begged, thus relieving the hesitancy Grandpa and Dad seemed to have about both leaving the house at the same time.

"You've hardly dressed for it," Grandpa commented, buckling on his high felt boots and turning up the collar of his Mackinaw.

"That's right," the stranger laughed, pulling up his trousers to reveal low-cut shoes. "Well, perhaps there is something I can do here at the house to repay you for my night's lodging."

The family protested in unison.

"We all just kind of live here in the kitchen of mornings," Mom explained apologetically, after Dad and Grandpa left.

"An utterly charming place it is," the stranger complimented. He walked around, looking at the bird chart, the old clock, the crocheted shawl over the back of the hickory rocker. "Someone here has studied interior decorating or else one has the gifted hand of an artist."

Mom blushed and Grandma dropped a fork, and into the pleasant silence that followed, I asked "Do you play checkers?"

"Why, of course, I play checkers." He tousled my hair kindly.

"Jeanie!" Mom said, half scolding.

"It's all right, madam. I'll count it a pleasure to entertain the children. Come, let us sit here by the window and have a game."

"It's cold by the window," I told him.

"But, it's so nice to look out. See, the snow has put white turbans on the fence posts to keep their heads warm. And the telephone line looks as if " He stopped suddenly and went quickly to the telephone, lifted the receiver, and listened.

"Law me, I guess the line is down in half a dozen places," Mom said.

"Yes, of course," he smiled and took his chair by the window. "Now, let's sit here and watch the people go by." He laughed and we all laughed with him. It was good to have someone different around.

During the game he kept looking at the road as if he really expected people to be coming and going.

When Dad returned from the barn, he came over to where we were playing, without even taking his coat and boots off, and said, "I don't believe you told us your name, sir."

The man made a sudden poor play and I jumped three of his men. Then he turned to Dad. "Oh, so I didn't. Funny how elementary things escape us when caught in the grip of great forces of nature. I was just saying "

"My name is Bell," Dad interrupted, offering his hand.

"My name is Checkers," the stranger said. He rose and shook hands with Dad very formally.

Lou and I started giggling. "Isn't it funny? We were just playing checkers, and his name is Checkers?" I marveled.

"A coincidence," Dad remarked.

"I spell it with an S," the stranger explained. "Sheckers."

Shucks, it wasn't so funny after all.

"We've got an old sleigh down at the barn," Dad said. "If you're of a mind to leave, I think we could get you down to the train stop again."

"Oh, pray, sir, I wouldn't trouble you so. I'll just bundle up and leave as I came and be forever grateful for you kind people. Would have left this morning as I planned, but I thought the snow might stop by afternoon. Perhaps it will."

By afternoon, Mr. Sheckers was sick. It started with a flushing of his face and then had a chill right over the stove with two wool blankets wrapped around him. Grandma laid a hand on his forehead and clucked her tongue dismally.

It was a sort of three-day kind of flu for which we were all thankful. To have gotten a doctor out of town would have been next to impossible on account of the roads, though Dad offered to try to go after one.

"No, no, no." Mr. Sheckers was almost cross in his protestations and got up out of bed as if to prevent any such actions.

Grandma made her special soup for sick people and Mama gave the patient our own brand of cough medicine out of the silver spoon. Lou and I, looking on, shuddered for poor Mr. Sheckers.

"A lovely spoon," he commented, taking it from Mom's hand and inspecting it, turning it over to see the label on the back. "Do you have a whole set?"

"No," Mama said.

"We get to take medicine out of it, took when we're sick," I told him.

"Where do you keep the rest of them?" he asked.

Mama looked at him in surprise as if it were a peculiar question.

"Well, I mean," Mr. Sheckers faltered, "you don't eat with them every day, do you? If a person has anything lovely, it should be used all the time, I think."

"We only have the one," Mama explained.

Lou and I wished that Mr. Sheckers would be snowbound with us all winter. He knew different games, could tell stories and recite poetry. One afternoon, when Dad and Grandpa were out, Lou and I begged him to do "the Highwayman" again for us. He could make us cry every time.

"I like you," I told him frankly, blinking through my tears when he had finished.

There came a funny, faraway look into his eyes. He laid his hand on my head, started to say something, and didn't. He walked over to the window and looked out a long, long time. He held his hands together behind him so tightly that the knuckles turned white. Suddenly he faced about from the window. "I tell you what," he said brightly. "Let's have a tea party."