She Had Them Well Trained!

This is not my story, but I still think about it from time to time. My grandmother told me about it, and the main character is her sister.

[Sister] always slept in, and one morning, she was running to catch the train. Since it was a small train station out in the countryside, the train conductor knew this, so they always waited for her to catch up. Yes, the whole train waited — and became a few minutes late — for one person.

One time, [Sister] got so sick that she had to stay home, and she called in sick. The day after that, when she ran to catch the train in the morning, it did not wait for her, so she missed it. She hadn’t thought to tell the train she was sick, after all.

This begs the question, how long did they wait the day before? My grandmother didn’t know, and I still imagine that conductor patiently waiting for the late girl in the countryside to come running over the horizon.