Waiting for the train
“Ah, youth! Too bad it’s wasted on the young.” Attributed to W. C. Field Since reckless adventure seems an inherent part of growing up, it was no less the case of four boys of the fourteen and fifteen year old variety on a summer night in 1931. For want of something adventurous to do they conceived a notion that brought an experience quite beyond what they had bargained for.
At that time the Texas and Pacific Railway operated only two freight trains daily between Texarkana and Shreveport. One went south through Doddridge at about 10:30 at night, and the other went north at about 2:00 in the morning. The word “about” is advisedly used here because these trains were exceedingly slow and the schedule was totally unreliable. The basic idea was simply that they would be there when they got there. They stopped at all towns along the way to switch freight cars to and from the side tracks. Stealing a ride was an easy matter since one could get on and off while the train was standing still.
The notion conceived by these knights-errant was to get on the southbound freight in Doddridge, go to Hosston, Louisiana, sixteen miles south, then wait to catch the northbound freight to return. The whole escapade was to be over by three AM, at which time they could all be home in bed.
The train arrived: they found an empty boxcar and rode to Hosston as planned. Step two was to wait for the northbound which they felt would be coming along within the hour after their arrival.
A full hour passed but no sound of a train in the silence of the late night. This wasn’t considered to be anything significant however, considering the unpredictable nature of these trains.
Another hour passed, but by this time considerable apprehension was pervading the group, and there were some mutter ings as to the stupidity of this wild scheme in the first place. Sixteen miles was a long way to walk back to Doddridge, and this possibility was beginning to weigh on everyone’s mind. To make things even more deplorable, sleepiness was beginning to have a marked effect, and there was no place to sleep. The grass outside the depot was drenched with dew, the bench seats inside had permanent arm rests at every seat location, and the floor was too filthy to even consider. Everyone was in short sleeves, and the 3:30 morning air had taken on an uncommonly clammy chill. The adventure by now had taken on the aspects of total misery.
Still another hour passed: no train. At this point a genuine sense of alarm was predominating, and the boys began to talk seriously about beginning the sixteen mile trek back to Doddridge, a dismal prospect indeed, considering that by now they had spent a night without sleep. But just as dawn was breaking, the sound of the northbound freight came to their ears.
Moments later it came rumbling past the depot, but at such speed as to evoke fear that it wasn’t going to stop. It did, however, and everyone climbed aboard. At about 8:30 AM the train came into Doddridge. The stores were already open, people were standing about and of course were looking at the train. The boys, having no other choice, had to get off the train like hoboes in front of a viewing public. It was a most humiliating experience. But as troubling as this predicament was, there was another matter far more disturbing: that of having to face their parents; they were certain to get wind of such a forbidden venture, if indeed they hadn’t already.
It isn’t known what transpired between parents and sons, what lectures or punishments were measured out, if any. It seems likely, in any case, that the boys would have agreed with Robert Burns who, in his “Ode to a Field Mouse,” declared that “...the best laid plans of mice and men do oft’ go astray.”