being replaced by diesel and the train itself was barely needed since most of the seafood was being trucked directly out of Chincoteague. Still, one of my greatest memories was hearing that steam engine coming down the track very slowly, belching smoke and hissing steam past Pop's house next to the tracks. It was going another ¼ mile to the Franklin City dock. When I was lucky, I'd stand by the track and the engineer would stop the train and pick me up. He'd sometimes let me throw some coal in the boiler and blow the whistle as we traveled to the dock. I'd either walk back to Pop's or hitch that same ride. But either way I was as black as that coal.

I stopped spending summers inhanded it to the girl on arrival and simply said, holding my breath, 'I believe God wants me to give this to you.' I felt a bit awkward and embarrassed but gave it to her anyway.I continued with leading the meeting and, after a few minutes, noticed the girl was in tears. It turns out she had had a major row with her mum that week and, as a result, had left home that day, moving into a bedsit. Her mum, also feeling distraught, gave her a box of food to take with her.The girl wasn't going to come to the meeting that evening. She sat in her bedsit alone, weeping. After a while, she opened the box to get something to eat, only to discover it was