Beverly Kline woke with a start. She was used to constant traffic of trains past the side of her house in the middle of the night, but tonight, the usual pattern of sounds had changed. She had surely heard the regular midnight train; there was no doubt about that, but the sound of the wheels on the tracks had suddenly halted. Something was wrong.

She was but a slight of a girl—seventeen, but no one would guess her to be more than twelve. She was thin, and frail, not cut out for working on her father's farm. She dreamed of adventure, dreading that it would never find her. With every train that passed by came another dream of her being a passenger within, able to travel to exotic lands. But never in her seventeen years of living adjacent to the tracks had a train stopped.

She pulled on her dressing gown and stepped quietly down the stairs. Careful not to wake her parents, Beverly tiptoed through the kitchen and out the door into the yard. She was shocked by what she saw. Quite a few men seemed to be walking on top of the train, carrying what appeared to be brooms. She couldn't imagine why they were there, but thought it best to keep hidden in case something was wrong. She quickly scampered behind her father's tool shed and watched as the men conversed amongst themselves. They remained huddled for quite a while and Beverly's eyes began to wander.

She observed through the windows of the passenger cars that most of the travelers were still asleep, heads rested against the windowsills. She looked closely at each of the passengers. One was an elderly woman whose wig was sliding off of her head. Another was a little girl, dressed in very fine clothes, finer than Beverly had ever seen. As she moved down the line of the train, she moved further out from behind the shed to get a better view. Paying attention to the train rather than her surroundings, Beverly tripped over a shovel lying in the dirt. She hit the ground at an awkward angle and it took her a few moments to regain her composure.

As she picked herself up from the ground, she was startled to see that she was being watched. A pair of stormy gray eyes peered at her from a window near the middle of the train. It was a young man. She stared back for several seconds before he jumped, quickly turning to glance behind him. The broomstick men had finished talking. They were now entering the train. Whoever they were, they weren't welcome on that train—at least by one of the few conscious passengers. She waved frantically back at the train, trying to gain the attention of the young man. She didn't know why, but Beverly felt a desperate need to help him.