It was a dim, cool Easter morning when the train neared Topeka. Vanilla-still half-awake-seated herself in the common area at the back end of the compartment car, opened her hymnal, her husband Hazel's Mandarin dictionary, and her diary. The former two she spread on the coffee table. By the light of an oil lamp, she began to write on the diary's smooth, creamy paper. At the top of the page, she wrote:

I'm going home to see my mother,

I'm going there no more to roam

I'm only going over Jordan:

I'm only going over home.

I know dark clouds will gather 'round me,

I know my way is rough and steep,

But golden fields lie just before me,

Where God's redeemed shall ever sleep.

Below, she sketched a column for a list of likely words, and a larger blank space for the rendered translation. Vanilla pursed her lips in concentration, longing for a cup of coffee. Of course it was this hymn's chorus that was giving her the most trouble. "Lord give me wisdom." The right words would come soon.

Two hours passed. Dawn's rosy fingers crept into the sky, as the train chugged into Topeka's city limit. Vanilla put down her diary and shook her head: both spaces were stained by graphite smudges instead of letters. Nothing she tried sounded right to her, whether she hummed it or simply spoke the lines like a poem. In the past, Hazel would play the bamboo flute-bought from a Shangdong market-while she wrote. Something about that instrument, or perhaps the way Hazel had played it, kept her focused and allowed the right words to flow onto the page. She sighed, and looked up. No wisdom was forthcoming from the heavens.

She brushed away the rubber eraser shavings, closed the diary, and pulled out her King James Bible. Onion-skin pages crackled as she found her place in the Gospel of Matthew. 'Which section was-ah, there.' Matthew 5:3, at the beginning of The Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." She had underlined that passage yesterday, as it seemed to jump out at her as she read it. Vanilla often took this strange feeling as a cue to meditate on the passage that seemed to cause it, and so far it hadn't led her astray.

Her mother, who worked for an abolitionist newspaper during the years of Bleeding Kansas, had maintained that the term "poor in spirit" referred to those stricken with the most extreme poverty, such as slaves, coolies, and the homeless: these, her mother had said, were poor to their very spirits. Her father, a professor of theology, had generally agreed with this view. Vanilla had never been fully satisfied with that answer. If it were that simple, wouldn't much of the material charity her parents had done, that she herself had done, only make it harder for souls to see Heaven?

Looking out the window, she quietly asked into the sky, "So who are the poor in spirit?" She turned the thought over in her mind, examining it as a jeweler examines an uncut emerald. The train came to a halt. The whistle blew several cars ahead. She kept thinking, and praying as she thought. No other answer came to her then, nor as she put on her white shirtwaist and wide hat, not as she disembarked with over a hundred other passengers, nor as she noticed a young, pink, dust-stained hedgehog sitting on the platform beside the benches, a harmonica at her lips and an upturned, empty hat by her crossed legs.

She stopped to watch the hedgehog. The girl could keep in tune, but she played each bar so sluggishly that Vanilla didn't recognize the song. She listened carefully, nodding encouragement to the hedgehog when their eyes met; suddenly, her mind registered the tune, and she hummed as the hedgehog played:

Way-ay-ay, you rolling river!

Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you!

Way-ay-ay, I'm bound away

'Cross the wide Missouri!

Vanilla approached the girl, and let two cents fall into the hat.

Those two little coins had an immediate effect. The girl's playing sped up a little, coming closer to the time of the original song, and a grateful-albeit exhausted-smile sprouted behind the instrument. It was then that Vanilla noticed the gauntness of the girl's face and fingers, the bagginess of her clothes. "Stay here," Vanilla said, "I'll bring you something."

The girl stopped playing, suddenly embarrassed. "I...You don't have to take the trouble, miss-"

"Woundwort," Vanilla said, as she knelt and reached out a hand. "Mrs. Woundwort. Though you may call me Vanilla."

The girl slowly took the proffered hand, shaking it. "Amy. Amy Rose."

"Short for Amelia?" Amy nodded. "What a lovely name, Amelia Rose."

"Just Amy, please," Amy said, "Saying it all the way gets me in trouble."

"How so?"

"It brings out my brogue, same when I sing. I can't stop it for hours after, and people don't like hearing it out here."

"Your brogue?" Then it clicked in Vanilla's mind. "Oh. You're an immigrant."

Amy shook her head. "Me grandfather and da." The lapse caused her to make a face, before she continued. "I was born in the port of Charleston."

Vanilla's eyebrows rose. "Does your family know you're out here? How old are you?"

Amy didn't answer. Vanilla waited. When it became clear that Amy would answer neither of those questions, she stood. "I'll be back soon." She thought she saw relief in Amy's gaunt features. Vanilla had turned, and gone halfway down the platform steps when she heard the harmonica spring to life: the same sad song as before, but now buzzing with the soul it needed.

Way-ay-ay, we're bound away,

Across the wide Missouri!

A quarter-mile up the road from the platform, set back only a short distance from the train tracks, was the local Harvey House: a long, red-brick building that resembled a neo-colonial church with two long wings, its eaves and windows accented with white paint. Vanilla found herself wrapped in an aura of scents and sounds when she entered the lobby: black coffee and fried eggs, clattering hot dishes, perfume and fresh linens, and a hundred conversations about tobacco shares, about how Uncle Harris struck it rich in the Yukon, about how the train fare keeps spiking every week, and about how that blathering idiot John Muir thinks the waterfalls of Yosemite are somehow alive. The dining room was packed. 'Ah, yes," Vanilla thought, 'Easter. Brunches. Of course.' A Quaker her entire life, she wasn't used to keeping track of holidays.

A young otter, dressed in a white blouse, black bowtie, and long, black skirt, greeted her. "Welcome to Harvey's House! There are seats if you don't mind sharing a table, Miss...?"

"Woundwort," Vanilla said, "and no, I don't mind at all." She followed the otter into the din of the dining room. As a family of grey foxes brushed past them, Vanilla spotted a lone diner at a table by the windows overlooking the tracks. She had a newspaper, a ledger, and a tall coffeepot with her. Vanilla also noticed that there was just enough room to sit. She pointed the table out to the otter, who hesitated. "There?"

"She's been there since midnight!" she called over the noise. "Never says a word, either!"

"That will do!" Vanilla called into her ear.

Reluctantly, the otter led her through the Brownian motion of the restaurant. The lone diner looked up from her newspaper at the otter's approach, and Vanilla finally saw her face: a chipmunk, with neat auburn hair, a youthful face, and intelligent blue eyes. Those blue eyes, bagged from many sleepless nights, met Vanilla's brown ones.

"More coffee, Miss Sally?" the otter asked.

Sally shook her head. "No, but thank you."

"Whiskey?"

Vanilla saw the word "Yes" begin to form on Sally's lips. 'Poor woman,' she thought. 'Why on earth would she need whiskey this early?'

Something must have shown on her face, because Sally paused, then said: "Two glasses of cola, please."

The otter brightened, understanding that any awkward questions had been brushed aside. She scribbled the order on a little notepad. "Two colas." She turned to Vanilla. "And yourself, ma'am?"

"I'll have the blue plate special." Vanilla pulled up a chair, ordering as she sat. "Oh, two biscuits and a newspaper as well, please."

The otter nodded, scribbling. "All right. Is that all for both of you?"

"For now," Vanilla said, and Sally nodded. The otter she had to share space with a complete stranger, be it on a train, a ship's cabin, or at table, Vanilla always acted as if she were a guest in that stranger's house. "You are very kind, Miss Sally," she said, adjusting her skirt for a more comfortable seating.

Sally emptied the last few drops from the coffeepot into her half-full mug, dropped in a sugar cube, and stirred until it dissolved. "You're very welcome." To Vanilla's surprise, she then extracted the stirring spoon, lifted the mug to her lips, and promptly gulped down the remaining coffee. As she dabbed her lips with a napkin, Sally realized her fatigue-induced faux pas. She blushed. "That was rude of me. My apologies, Mrs...?"

Vanilla nodded understanding. "You're forgiven. It's Woundwort, by the way."

Sally looked curiously at Vanilla. "No relation to General Woundwort?"

Vanilla inhaled, then exhaled her answer. "His niece-in-law. I married his nephew, Hazel."

"Is he with you?"

"No." Vanilla wanted to leave it at that, but something in her added: "He's gone to England." In truth, she only had a vague idea of where Hazel had gone, after she gave him her ultimatum: confess that he had a mistress to their church, or get the hell out of this house. Now that she'd voiced their separation to someone else, Vanilla felt a little better about it.

Sally studied the older woman with a look not unsympathetic. "I see."

Vanilla decided to alter the path of the conversation. "How would you know of General Francis Woundwort?"

"My father dragged him from The Crater."

"At Petersburg?"

"Yes."

"Captain...Acorn, was he? I recall that he hosted card games with Francis and all of his West Point friends."

A small, proud smile tugged at Sally's lips. "And he always cleaned them out, didn't he?"

"Every time."

The otter returned with two tall glasses filled with dark, fizzy Coca-Cola. "Your food should be here soon, ma'am," she told Vanilla, departing before the latter could thank her.

"Is your father well?" Vanilla asked.

Sally quietly inhaled. "He's been dead for two years."

"Oh. I'm sorry for your loss, Miss Acorn."

Sally picked up her ledger and transferred it to a handbag. "I run his company now." The pride in that statement turned bitter in the one that followed: "For all that's worth."

"His company?" Vanilla inquired.

Sally looked incredulous. "Acorn Armaments?" she prompted. Vanilla shook her head. "We once built the best revolvers in the country!"

Something that had always bugged Vanilla about weapons, and especially firearms, was the naked, almost childish glee with which some people used them. Her reply was neutral: "I haven't had much need to purchase a six-shooter."

Sally sighed. "I suppose it doesn't matter now. Our ammunition sells better than the pistols ever did." A short, cough-like laugh escaped her. "In fact, the Navy wants us to build shells for their new line of battleships." As she spoke, Sally deflated.

Vanilla thoughtfully sipped her drink. Cane sugar and bitter kola washed over her tongue and down her throat. "You don't sound very happy about that." A long silence followed. Vanilla waited: Sally looked as if she wanted to say something, but was chewing on whether it was a good idea to say it.