Located in the checkroom in Union Station, I see everybody that comes up the stairs.
Harry came in a little over three years ago and waited at the head of the stairs for the passengers from the 9:05 train. I remember seeing him that first evening. He wasn't much more than a thin, anxious kid then, all dressed up. I knew he was meeting his girl and that they would be married twenty minutes after she arrived.
The passengers came up and I got busy. I didn't look toward the stairs again until nearly time for the 9:18, and I was surprised to see the young fellow still there. She didn't come on the 9:18 either, nor on the 9:40. When the passengers from the 10:02 had all left, Harry looked desperate. He came close to my window, and I asked him what she looked like.
"She's small and dark," he said, "nineteen years old, and very neat in the way she walks. She has a face... that has lots of spirit. I mean she can get mad but she never stays mad for long, and her eyebrows come to a little point in the middle. She's got a brown fur, but maybe she isn't wearing it."
I couldn't remember seeing anybody like that. He showed me the telegram: "ARRIVE THURSDAY. MEET ME STATION. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. MAY." It was from Omaha, Nebraska.
"Why don't you phone home?" I suggested. "She's probably called if she got in ahead of you."
He gave me a sick look. "I've only been in town two days. We were going to meet and then drive South where I've got a job. She hasn't any address for me."
The next day he was still there. "Did she work anywhere?" I asked.
He nodded. "She was a typist. I telegraphed her former boss. All they know is that she left her job to get married."
Harry met every train for the next few days. The railroad and police made routine checks, but nobody was any real help. They seemed to think May had played a trick on him, but I never believed that.
After about two weeks, I told Harry my theory. "If you wait long enough," I said, "you'll see her coming up those stairs someday." He turned and looked at the stairs as though he had never seen them before.
The next day, Harry was behind the counter of Tony's magazine stand. "Well, I had to get a job somewhere, didn't I?" he said sheepishly. He began working for Tony. We never spoke of May again, but I noticed Harry always watched every person who came up the stairs.
Toward the end of the year, Tony was killed in a gambling argument. His widow left Harry in charge of the stand. Later, when she remarried, Harry bought it. He borrowed money, installed a soda fountain, and soon had a nice little business.
Then came yesterday. I heard a cry and things falling. It was Harry. He had jumped over the counter, upsetting dolls and other items. He ran and grabbed a girl not ten feet from my window. She was small and dark, her eyebrows coming to a little point in the middle.
For a while, they just held each other, laughing and crying. She said things like, "It was the bus station I meant..." and he kissed her and told her all he had done to find her. Apparently, three years before, May had come by bus, not train. In her telegram, "station" meant bus station, not railroad station. She had waited at the bus station for days, spent all her money trying to find Harry, and finally got a typing job.
"What?" said Harry. "Have you been working in town? All the time?"
She nodded.
"Heavens! Didn't you ever come down here to the station?" He pointed to his magazine stand. "I've been there all the time. I own it. I've watched everybody that came up the stairs."
She began to look pale. She looked at the stairs and said weakly, "I never came up these stairs before. You see, I went out of town yesterday on a short business trip... Oh, Harry!" Then she threw her arms around his neck and began to cry.
After a minute, she backed away and pointed stiffly toward the north end of the station. "Harry, for three years, for three solid years, I've been right over there... working in this very station, typing, in the office of the stationmaster."