Christy

Only my father saw me to the Asheville station that Sunday morning in 1912. Mother hag gotten up early to fix us a hot breakfast. It was one of those moments that would be as sharp and real in my mind years later as it was that January morning: that particular look of love and longing in mother's eyes; the smell of the starch in her crisp white apron; the hissing of the pine resin in the big iron stove; the lake of melted butter in the steaming mound of hominy grits on my plate.
Then father had called from the front room, "Time to start!" And my brother George, hearing the announcement, had stumbled out of bed and down the stairs to the landing, where he had stood leaning sleepily on the bannister, tousled hair in his eyes, to tell me good-bye.
"Have to go." father repeated from the doorway. "The engine's running. I had a time cranking the car in this cold."
In the gray light before dawn, the railroad station had a wraithlike look. I saw with a strange leap of heart that the train was going to be pulled by Old Buncombe, a favorite engine on the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad. The engine was painted green with gold trim and lettering and there were a big brass ornaments on it's headlight. The billows of smoke pouring out of Old Buncombe's smokestack looked blacker than usual against the background of new-wallen snow.