New Orleans
Departing his hometown of Council, Mississippi, was difficult for Adam. His mother had not wanted him to go to New Orleans for a brief visit with a Windsor Academy classmate, but she eventually yielded to her husbands insistence that their son get out and see the world. The day before he left, Adams Uncle Hiram had called him into his office at the family store and had given him a large box.

Its a suit, Adam. Latest style. The swells wear them a lot in cities like New Orleans, he said, smiling at his nephew. Too, your aunt and I wanted to give you something you can use when you go to college. You know, something practical.

Thank you. I really enjoyed working for you, Uncle Hiram! It was a fun summer, exclaimed the youth who had worked the two previous summers in the family businesses the McLaurin Mercantile Store and the Bank of Council. And he had to admit to himself that working in the mercantile store was more interesting than in the bank. Adam had served as his uncles best man when the confirmed bachelor had married Doris Griffin, a widow woman who came to live in Council.

Now, as he prepared to leave for a visit with his Windsor Academy classmate Tim Regan, he glanced about the store at the assortment of empty chairs and nail-keg stools surrounding the wood stove, silent and cold, waiting for its chance to roar and fume up the building with a blazing split oak log fire come winter, Adam thought of the stories and tales that had spewed out from the mouths of the cluster of local men who migrated from the iron monsters sides and perched on the stores front gallery and its benches from early morning to late afternoon. The location was abandoned rarely except for dinner and supper. Occasionally, one or two of the more dedicated rail hangers optioned for a meal of soda crackers and a wedge of yellow rat cheese while those more prosperous members enjoyed a tin of sardines. All of this was washed down with a pop.

Riding in the family automobile, Adam tried not to think of Carrie Napier, his childhood sweetheart and of what she was doing married and living with ancient Cooter Edwards in Pontotoc. Perhaps, thought Adam, it was like the men in the barbershop in Council said just a contrivance a set-up by Hector Napier, her father. A swap like she was a second hand knife. At times, he attempted to wipe the memories of Carrie out of his head, but it never happened not completely.

At the Grenada Depot, Adam embraced the ladies and shook his uncles hand before grasping his fathers. He felt the crispness of the currency Charles McLaurin had palmed to him. The elder smiled and squeezed his sons upper arms.

Take care and be mindful. New Orleans is a bustling town, warned his father.

We are so proud of you, encouraged his mother, placing her arm within her sons. Now, you behave yourself. Have a good time, but be good.

Now, Mother, he will be all right. Enjoy yourself, Adam. Be alert! Climbing aboard the train, Adam hesitated, gazed at the smiling faces of his family and started to step down from the car, but when he remembered Regan was to meet him and had made plans to show him the city he hurried up the steel steps. Once inside the car, he settled into his seat and rested his head against the immaculate white linen cloth that protected the prickly mohair material, closed his eyes momentarily, opened them, sat up, looked out the trains window, and waved to his family on the station platform.

Train rides, he thought, were a complete paradox to him. There was nothing he enjoyed more and nothing he disliked as much. Trains were constantly taking him away. The lumbering contraptions took him to the southern part of the state and away from Carrie. Adam rationalized that going to Windsor Academy in order to complete his secondary schooling had proven to be a wise decision. After three years he recognized he had matured physically and mentality and gained the necessary self-reliance that was needed in college. Struggling with the burden of the strict military regime at Windsor Academy had offered Adam a new outlook and deeper understanding of himself.

Thoughts of Carrie, his lost love, plummeted through his mind throughout the trip. A small portrait of her in an oval shaped frame was all he had by which to remember her. Adam had not heard from her during the three years at Windsor. Warned by Aunty Jane, the family housekeeper, not to attempt to see Carrie, and after scores of unanswered letters, Adam stopped writing. He often had wondered if Carrie had forgotten him and if she was happy living with the man she had been forced to marry. As the train moved out of Grenada he leaned back again and remembered how he had tried to forget Carrie during the first year at Windsor by getting involved with a local girl, Viola Hagan. But in his dreams, he concocted wild fantasies of finding Carrie, abducting her, fleeing the country, going to South America and starting new lives together, but he dismissed the ideas from his mind as mere dreams, immature fantasies of an adolescent. Nevertheless, when he sat alone memories of Carrie came over him and he hated himself for not searching for her. The only memory he had of Carrie was found in an oval-shaped picture showing her sweet face framed with her long flowing black hair.

Regrets had filled his mind. He closed his eyes and napped. In Jackson, the state capital, he got off the train and bought a magazine and a bag of peppermint candies. He walked about the station until time to get on broad the train for the final part of his journey.