It was true that Frank Bowman was very busy about this time. The last spike was driven to affix the rails of the V. C. branch road to Polktown and he was working like a Trojan to make all ready for the regular running of trains to and from the main line. But there were people in Polktown who never would forgive him for suppressing certain telegrams that reached him from the Southwest about this time.
A rising murmur went through the crowd; then they cheered.
"There ain't no excuse for a man bein' a hawg," Walky Dexter afterward declared. "Frank might ha' intermated what was comin' off when the fust train was due ter pull into Polktown; I sha'n't never feel jest the same towards him again."
Half the town had turned out to welcome the initial train. The stores were trimmed with bunting and many of the residences displayed flags, as though it were the Fourth of July or Memorial Day.
Mr. Middler was scheduled for a speech. He made it, too; but not quite the speech the good minister had intended. For it was his eyes that first identified one of the passengers on the incoming train. Before the locomotive halted Mr. Middler uttered a very robust shout and rushed to the steps of the first passenger car, his hands outstretched.
"Janice! Janice Day!"
A rising murmur went through the crowd; then they cheered. The girl stood smiling on the platform looking out over the crowd, and when they cheered such a fire of pride and delight flashed up in her countenance and sparkled from her hazel eyes as nobody had ever seen before.
"Oh—folks!" she murmured, stretching her hands out to them.
Frank Bowman stood at one side, smiling broadly. "We're not celebrating the opening of the railroad branch," he said to Elder Concannon, "half as much as we are celebrating the home-coming of Janice Day."