Chapter 3

One Saturday morning at the station, shortly before Christmas, things seemed to be running along smoothly. The breakfast dishes were cleared and drying. Johnny sat that the kitchen table, and enjoyed a second cup of coffee after clean-up. The rest of the guys were busy with the housekeeping chores in this 48 hour shift. And Cap was in the office, slogging his way through the paperwork that seemed to grow every time he left the small office.

The front door bell rang unexpectedly. It wasn't that common for the stationhouse to have visitors, although, around the holidays a few of the locals did stop in to wish the guys a Merry Christmas. Johnny figured no one else heard the bell since they were busy, so he went to answer the door. When he opened the door there stood a smartly dressed woman with 3 children. The smaller two kids looked to be about 7 and they were holding a large box between them. The older one, a girl with her arm in a cast smiled shyly when she saw who answered the door.

"I'm sure you don't' remember my daughter and I," the woman began…

Johnny interrupted her, "Maggie, is that you? How's your arm doing?"

The girl smiled and quietly told him, "Fine."

"Welcome. Why don't you come in? It's Mrs. Davis, right?" John asked as he held the door open for the group of visitors. "Hey Cap," he called into the office, "we have visitors."

Captain Stanley come out of his office and extended his hand to Mrs. Davis. "Please to meet you ma'am. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?"

"That would be delightful, if it wouldn't be too much trouble," she replied. The three kids followed closely behind their mom.

The moment they entered the door and the bay was visible, the young boy's face lit up. "Oh, that is so cool!" He started to walk towards the engine when his mother's voice commanded his attention.

"Beauregard James Jefferson Davis!"

"Mommmm," the embarrassed boy whined. "Can't you please call me Jimmy like everyone else?"

"Young man, you get over here this instant," Mrs. Davis demanded.

"Yes Ma-am," he replied with his head lowered.

Soon the rest of the crew were scattered in the general area. "I'm so sorry to create a scene, gentlemen. The girls were doing some holiday baking and suggested we bring some over to you, since you were so helpful with Margaret, at school last month." For those that didn't recognize the taller girl at first, they remembered the call now. "The other 2 are the twins, Beauregard James and Marie Gizelle. "

"Jimmy," the boy whispered.

"We brought you these!" explained Marie, as she held out the box to the group in general. "We made cookies!"

"Well," Hank said, as he took the box from her small hands, "you can never go wrong with Christmas cookies! Maybe we could sample a few and then Jimmy and Marie might get to look at the engine, if that's alright with you," he deferred to the mother.

"I imagine that would be acceptable, so long as we aren't putting you out."

"No problem at all," they agreed.

"Just as long as we don't get a call," Cap added.

"Besides," Johnny grinned, "you brought cookies!"

They all sat around the kitchen table and got to know each other a bit, Johnny and Chet vied with the twins for the "Most Cookies Eaten Award."

"Children!" came the harsh admonishment of Mrs. Davis. All four guilty cookie monsters looked up sheepishly. The twins quickly sat up straighter and took a sip of their milk. Chet busily brushed crumbs out of his moustache while Johnny struggled to chew and swallow, without seeming like a pig.

"Twits!" Cap muttered under his breath.

After a somewhat calmer break time, Mrs. Davis and Maggie sipped on tea, while the others all had milk, to go with their share of the cookies. "That was great!" Mike spoke up in thanks.

"We really appreciate you sharing your holiday goodies with us! My nieces love to bake too. But somehow, they never make it to the station."

"So, did you guys want to see "Big Red" the engine?"

"Can we Mama? Please, please, please," Jimmy and Marie asked.

"If you can behave and these gentlemen don't mind, alright."

Roy was picking up the cups and glasses from the table. Johnny was covering the cookies, but some how seemed to be having a hard time getting the foil over top of them with more falling onto the table – and then, needing to be eaten.

"Do you want me to help you with that?" Maggie asked. "Well, one handed help any way."

"Huh?" Johnny asked as he stuffed another cookie in his mouth. "Oh, sure. Fanks."

Hey Johnny," Maggie started, "can I ask you a question?"

"Sure you can Maggie," he replied, swallowing rapidly. "What's up? Are you doing okay? Is the arm bothering you?"

Nah, the arm is fine."

"What about the other kids in school? How are things going with them?"

Maggie cast her eyes downward. "They are still horrible, but they just try to do stuff when no one else is around. They did say I didn't have to run in gym class because of the asthma."

"Well, that's good to hear! What's going on?" Roy asked, as he joined the conversation.

Maggie looked up at him, not sure what to say. "It's okay Maggie. Maybe you don't remember my partner Roy. He has a son, Chris, about the same age as the twins."

"Oh, that's nice," she said vaguely.

"I know Chris has some trouble at the bus stop earlier this year," Roy said, as he encouraged her to talk.

"The bus is the pits! Name calling is no big deal, but now they are throwing things at me on the bus," she confided in hushed tones.

"What sorts of things," Johnny demanded to know.

She shrugged. "Like junk from their lunches or bookbags. And it's so weird. I don't' know why, but they throw pennies at me too, especially in the lunch room."

"Pennies?" both Roy and Johnny asked.

"Yeah. Money. I guess they are so rich they can throw money away. But we aren't," she looked around sheepishly to see if her mom could have heard her. She lowered her voice and asked, "Is it wrong to pick up money if they throw it on the floor?"

"Not to me," Roy said.

"Me either," John agreed. "So do they say anything when they do this stuff?"

"Well, it's usually a bunch of them at a time, you know, showing off for their friends…but you know what?" she looked up shyly at the two men. "I tell them thank you very much for the money and sometimes there is even enough to buy a bag of chips or something. They don't seem to like that very much." She smiled.

"Well, I think that's a good answer," Roy told her.

"Me too," Johnny agreed.

There was a lull in the conversation, but Maggie made no move to get up. "Ummmm, Johnny," she said quietly, "can I ask you a question?"

"Sure thing, Maggie. I hope I can give you an answer."

"Well, when I had my accident… at the school, you said something that I'm not sure I understand." Johnny nodded his head, as he listened intently. "Before you left you said something like, 'The people who judge us, by how we look or sound, aren't worth our time.' What did you mean by that?"

Roy took this as a cue to leave and let the 2 have a heart to heart talk. He figured that he had a pretty good idea about what Johnny would have to say.

"Do you remember I told you that I came from Montana, with the bears and cougars?" Maggie nodded.

"Well, sometimes the hardest thing to deal with wasn't the cold or the animals, but the humans who live around us. You see, I'm part Indian, from the Lakota tribe."

"That is so cool!" she interjected.

"I think it's cool that you have been to the South and seen magnolia trees. While some folks at school don't seem to appreciate the differences that people can have. They think everyone should be the same, w/ the same clothes and hair and way of speaking. And you know what I think? That's just plain wrong!"

"Yeah, I think so too, but you'd think that they never heard of any other states because California is so big!"

"I wish there was an easy way around this problems with these mean girls, but you just have to keep ignoring them. Slowly, it will get better."

"We tried going to the school for help and they made it worse!"

"Yup. That can happen. I had to learn to find out what I enjoyed doing, like other activities in the school or outside of it, like at a local church. I also helped out around the relatives too, like watching the little kids or visiting with the elders. They always had interesting stories to tell."

"Well, we do go to church and they have some stuff. And I do want to start babysitting. I think that would be fun."

"That sounds like 2 great places to start. Why don't you talk it over with your mom. And," he said picking up the foil corner of the plate with cookies and snitching another one, " we all think you are a pretty terrific baker too!"

"Thanks Johnny. I'm going to give it a try," she said giving him a one armed hug. "Wanta sign my cast?"

"Absolutely!"

"Hey!" said Roy and the other guys returning from the bay, "we want to sign too!"

NOTE- This may seem like a simplistic way to address the rabid bullying that has been going on in schools all over the country, for many years. There are no easy solutions.

Some of the incidences included in this story are personal, and I vividly remember them 40+ years later.