At that moment their breakfast was rushed in front of them. As they gobbled down their eggs, the conductor bellowed onto the intercom saying they were nearing Baker City. Joan and Ben could not wait to stretch. It was four o’clock and the two had been sitting for almost 5 hours. When the train stopped, passengers flooded off, some to stretch and some arriving at their destination. But the stop in Baker City wasn’t long. Back on the train, Joan looked in her bag and found some knitting she could do to pass the time. It was six o’clock by the time they were in Boise, Idaho. The train was serving potato soup and Ben and Joan were starved so they asked the waiter “May I have some?”
“I would be delighted!” said the waiter. Then he cantered off to the back car to get some.

“Ben, do you remember when nanny came to stay at our house?” Joan asked.

“No,” said Ben.

“Well, you were probably too young to remember, but she did come and stay with us,” Joan said still remembering the photographs from her album.

“Why?” asked Ben.

“Well, because Papa died in World War 2 and Nanny was scared to death to stay home alone in Illinois.

“Oh,” Ben said somberly.

And just in perfect timing, came the waiter with two steaming hot bowls of warm potato soup.

“Will this be all for you?” the waiter questioned.


“I think so! Thank you!” Joan answered.
As the two grabbed the bowls from the waiter, steam escaped the soup and ran off into the roof of the train. Ben couldn’t wait to dig in because, again, he was very hungry. He grabbed the spoon off of the side of the dish, and stirred the soup. Then he scooped up a big spoon full of potatoes and broth and fed it into his mouth. Joan smiled at Ben and then did the same thing.

“This is delicious!” Joan exclaimed. “It reminds me of Aunt Mortise’s potato stew that she used to make for us when we were sick and had to stay at her house!”
Joan finished her last spoon full when she turned to Ben. His face was scarlet red and he looked nervous and scared. His throat was bunched up and it looked as though Ben couldn’t swallow.
“Ben, are you alright?” Joan asked.
Ben shook his head sternly. Immediately, Joan jumped from her chair and ran to the front of the train car looking for a waiter or conductor. “Help! My little brother is sick with something!! He just ate some potato soup and is red and scared. I think he had an allergic reaction!” Joan yelled to the front of the train where a group of waiters stood.
Three waiters followed Joan to Ben and another waiter ran to get a doctor. By the time they got there, Ben was even redder and looking as scared as he’d ever been. Soon a doctor was rushed to Ben who checked him out.
“Are you allergic to anything that you know of?” the doctor questioned looking nervous and talking very fast.
Ben shook his head.
Then Ben was taken to the medical car for the night. It was hard for Joan to sleep knowing Ben’s condition and wondering if he would be alright. She barely got any sleep at all. Ben was her younger brother. He had been through everything with Joan. She just couldn’t imagine life without him, without her skinny 9 year old brother. But now, Joan had to think about Ben. She had to pray that Ben would live and be ok in the morning. So that’s what she did for the rest of the night.
The next morning when waiters began moving around and passengers began chatting with one another; Joan got out of her bed and asked a waiter to take her to the medical car. The car was at the very end of the train, through the kitchen, dining, lounge, and sleeping cars. When she entered the car, she found Ben sleeping on a hospital bed to the left of the entrance. A questioning look on Joan’s face made a doctor standing near the entrance with a clipboard, come and help Joan.
“He has fallen asleep and there is only a slight chance he will wake up. This is a very rare condition. I’m terribly sorry for you,” the doctor said. “But we will let him sleep in the sleeping car tonight since we now know his condition. If anything strange happens, please let us know.” And then the doctor walked away.
That night as Joan was fast asleep Joan dreamed about Ben so much that her dream turned into nightmare. She dreamed that Ben had died from the allergic reaction and Joan had to go home and tell her mom. Their mom was so sad that she didn’t talk for weeks. Joan sat up in bed sweating from the nightmare.

She awoke to the sound of someone walking by her bed. Joan looked at the bed space where Ben had lied. He was gone! Joan had no choice but to get right out of bed and go find Ben. She went to the conductor and asked, “Have you seen Ben?”
“Why? Is he missing?” said the conductor.
“Well, he’s not in bed!” Joan exclaimed. “We must search the train!” said the conductor. “I’ll go this way, you go that way.” The conductor looked puzzled. “Go!!” yelled Joan.
Joan searched everywhere from each dining car’s tables to the chairs and sofas in the lounge, but couldn’t find After about ten minutes of searching, Joan remembered that the doctor wanted Joan to tell him if anything went wrong. So she ran to the medical car to tell him, eyes looking left and right the entire way there.
“Doctor! Doctor!” Joan screamed.
A doctor came running to Joan’s side from behind a curtain in the back.
“Yes?”
“Ben is missing. I woke up this morning and he wasn’t there! We have been searching now for a while and we haven’t found him!” By now Joan was in tears.
“It’s all right, Joan. I’ll come help look.” He said and ran out the door with Joan.
They searched the train from top to bottom. No sign of him. The last place that they hadn’t looked yet was the dining car which didn’t seem like a place that Ben could be, but still the group ran in and began to look. But he wasn’t there. Joan fell to the ground and cried. The waiters and doctor didn’t know what to do. They tried to calm Joan down, by telling her that they would find Ben and that he had to be here somewhere on the train, but she still cried. About twenty minutes later, Joan finally got up from the ground, wiped away her tears and began to walk back to where she slept to get her pillow and blanket.

After making her bed and grabbing her things, Joan glanced back to Ben’s bed. Someone was sleeping there. Joan pulled back the covers with a confused face. She knew who this was. It was Ben! “Ben!” she hollered with the loudest voice she could make. He awoke like a horn had been blown into his ear. “Yes?” he said with a voice similar to one you would have with a cold. “You are alive!” she shouted. “Yes I am!” He said. “I won’t ever eat that again!” That night, Joan fell asleep with Ben in her arms. She couldn’t remember a time where she was so relived to have Ben with her. Sometimes Ben annoyed Joan and sometimes they fought, but now Ben was the best thing that Joan could have in her life right now. They both fell fast asleep.
The next morning Joan woke up, but Ben was still fast asleep. “Wake up sleepy head, it’s time for breakfast! I will order…pancakes! What will you order, Ben?” Joan asked him. “I don’t know. Well, I do know that I definitely won’t be ordering potato soup for sure!” Ben joked. The two smiled and laughed. “Your back to your regular old self …that I love,” Joan said sweetly. That day Ben was alright. And at that very moment the conductor said they arrived in Springfield, Illinois. They could finely see there parents again.

Their parents lived in an apartment, but were planning to move to a bigger house when Ben and Joan arrived. The two could not wait to finely see there parents again. They also could not wait to tell their adventures from such a long ways away. The train skidded to a stop and the train began to move with chaos. When Joan and Ben looked out of their window, they found that their parents, Sarah and Tom, were waiting for them at the train station. Ben and Joan could not believe their eyes. It was really their parents! To the two siblings, it seemed like a decade before they had seen their parents. They learned that just because they didn’t have much in the beginning doesn’t mean it won’t turn out good in the end.
Passengers got off of the train row by row and soon it was Joan and Ben’s turn. The two grabbed their bags and proceeded to the center isle to begin exiting. When they stepped off of the train, immediately Ben sprinted to the place that their parents stood and gave them both big hugs. Joan followed close behind him and did the same.
“We’ve missed you so much!” Joan told her parents. “And we have so many adventures to tell you!”
“Just as long as we aren’t having potato soup for dinner!” Ben said and both Joan and Ben burst out laughing.
“It seems like you two had a wonderful time!” Their mom Sarah said smiling. “You two have surely grown up and matured. I think you might be able to something like this again real soon.” Joan looked at Ben and the two jumped up and down with happiness.
“Oh, please!” Ben begged.
“We’ll just have to see,” their mom said. “You know, you two have birthdays coming up soon.”
Two years later, as soon as the happy family settled down in their new home, the phone rang. “Hello” said Joan’s mother. “Hello,” Came the voice from the other end of the line. “This is your mom calling and I was wondering if you could have the children come back here to Oregon for a month or two this summer?” “Well,” said their mother. “I’m not sure. It would be a lot of money, but I guess it would be fine. I know that Joan and Ben haven’t stopped talking about how much they have missed you and Grandpa Earl since they got off of the train two years ago!” The two chatted for a while on the phone before their mother finally got off. She told Joan and Ben the good news which made the two children go crazy! They were as excited as if they had won one million dollars.
The trip would be in five months so that they could have a little while together. Their mother and father were as excited as they were. They thought it would give them something to remember and something to tell friends of how they had traveled that far. They could not wait to tell the adventures they had traveling from Springfield Illinois to Baker City, Oregon and hopefully their many adventures that they would have together throughout their lives.