Mary Peace Finley: The Midnight Ride of Blackwell Station

Mary Peace Finley Award-winning author of books for young people

Raephy glanced around the bedroom, dropped to her knees, peeled back the corner of the rag rug beside the bed, and pressed her eye to the knothole. In the train station below, her mother was sorting mail on the large desk that held a coil of wire, a telegraph key and a telegraphic sounder. Outside, Raephy could hear her older brother Harry and their Daddy fixing broken boards on the cattle chutes. Abruptly the sounder clicked into action, its sound amplified by the empty Prince Albert tobacco can behind it. Raephy squinted through the knothole, trying to read the words that zipped across the page from her mother’s pen. Dit-dit—That was “I”. Dah-dit—That was “N” “In….” something. Then she was lost. How could Mama remember all those letters? She turned her head, surprised to see the toes of her little sister’s bare feet wiggling beside her nose. “We’re in luck, Sadie!” Raephy flipped the rug back over the knothole and jumped up. “If we ask Mama now, she’ll let us go play. A telegram’s coming in. She’s too busy to say no.” Raephy and Sadie tiptoed past the curtain between their room and the kitchen area where their big sister Laura was kneading bread dough. Then they rumbled down the stairs into the station. “Mama, may we…”