Chapter 15

His Other Flabbergasting Discoveries

The Blue Feather Boarding House

Winter, 1914

“The rumors are true?” Liam had not believed them at first. However, the U.S. Post Office had truly helped to mail children on passenger or mail trains according to his friend. 

Tim leaned forward and raised his right palm, switching his attention from Miss Portillo delivering supper to a table nearest them, to Liam. “I solemnly swear on a stack of Bibles. My sister Nancy was on the very same train where that family shipped that baby boy. She said his name was James. He had an aunt as an escort, and only rode about a mile to his grandmother, so that’s a relief. The baby rode from Glen Este, Ohio where Nancy had been visiting a friend, to where the grandparents were to meet their grandson at the stop in Batavia.”

Liam wagged his head. “Is that a safe idea? To ship children on the train?” What in the world was going on? First a world war, and now parents taking such dangerous risks. “Well, I’m glad he wasn’t alone in a seat without someone to care for him.” 

Tim guffawed. “Really? You believe someone could mail a baby without a loving relative accompanying them? Families are just looking for a cheaper way to visit each other. Why not use those ‘Parcel Post’ rates?” He winked at Miss Portillo as she passed by. 

 “So, did the baby James have a stamp attached to him?” Liam smirked, then took a sip of his black coffee.

“Didn’t ask Nancy that. But he surely must’ve weighed under the fifty-pound limit, giving his parents a good deal.” 

Liam drummed his fingertips on the table’s surface beside his empty plate attempting to keep his irritation in check. “Although trains are magnificent, they’re originally designed for freight. Our passenger trains, like in Europe, are fantastic for sending people to and fro across this huge nation, but young children with stamps on them? People were worried about children riding in motor carriages at first.”

“They’ve been accompanied children on trains, Muldoon.”

“Right. But infants, and tender age children are particularly at the mercy of their parents’ odd whims and terrible choices.”

“You’re speaking of your stepmother’s. What about the time this past February when that little girl, Charlotte, was mailed in Idaho? Think she was five. Are you concerned that she could’ve run off somewhere at a stop? Did you hear about her?” Tim raised his cup for more coffee as Miss Portillo approached.

“Be right back, Mr. O’Hare.” Miss Portillo smiled and flushed before she hurried off to fetch the coffee pot.

Liam pushed his plate and fork aside, then scooted his cup to the edge of the table for more. “I did. Thank you, Miss Portillo.” Steam and coffee aroma rose from his fresh cup, and he wrapped his chilly fingers around it. 

When she filled Tim’s cup, he grinned wide at his love interest. “What do you think about children being mailed on the trains, Miss Portillo?” The air palpably buzzed with conflicting thoughts swirling from customers  in the dining room to match the snowflakes outside. 

Liam surveyed the avid listeners at the tables around them openly eavesdropping. Everyone must have an opinion they seemed eager to share.

“Heard stories about it but believed it was a folktale. Does it truly happen?” Miss Portillo’s green eyes widened. “More than once?”

“Oh yes. It’s true,” said a woman with white streaked hair piled up in a bun who sat at the table to Liam’s left. “My neighbor’s son’s daughter’s friend rode the train that Charlotte was on with her cousin. He was a railway postal clerk, so there was that good thing.” She gave a nod of approval. 

Liam sniffed.

The woman slid at glance at him and shrugged. “Evidently, he pinned a thirty-two-cent stamp to her little coat. It helped that Charlotte only weighed forty-three pounds, of course, well under the fifty-pound postal limit you mentioned, Mr. O’Hare.” She squinted at Liam. “It wasn’t against the law to mail her, you know.” 

Liam grimaced. “Sure, it wasn’t. Until the Post Office recently banned mailing humans.”

The older woman’s smirk added creases to her wrinkled face. “All that poppycock about mailing people ended then. I assure you, I’d be a happy grandmother to see my grandchildren in any way possible. But like you, I am glad all the same that the Postal Service put a stop to sending children like letters.” 

A workman in stained overalls at the next table chuckled loudly and paused eating his supper . “Surely you can’t blame parents for sending their children to family at the cheapest prices possible? Heard all the youngsters arrived safely and the mail carriers knew the families. Remember that. Packs of strangers didn’t take part in shipping children willy nilly. Didn’t hear news of kidnappings or any other wickedness. Only train rides.”

“There you have it. No troubles at all.” The older woman frowned at Liam.

“But children? Lord have mercy.” Miss Portillo shook her head, then turned toward an eager customer calling to her and taking a seat at another table.

Tim’s avid gaze followed her. “Trains are safe, although fast and huge.”

Risking the lives of youngsters did not sit well in Liam’s estimation. However, he desperately wanted his two brothers to be home with their family. “Would I sanction mailing them on the train?” Perhaps he would. Have the boys ever traveled by train? He ought to ask his fellow railway men to keep a lookout for them or to try to recall them. However, ten years had passed. They had changed. Portraits of them, like they recently paid for of the rest of the family, would have been enormously useful to search for them. Could Cara draw some from memory?