beloved hardware store would be the death of him.

It was a neighborly crowd that waited for the 10:27. And as it waited
Jim Tumley started singing "Auld Lang Syne." He began very softly but
soon the melody swelled to a clear sweetness that hushed the laughing
chatter and stilled the shuffling feet of the Pullman passengers who
crowded the train vestibules or strolled in weary patience along the
station platform.

Then the 10:27 swung around the curve and the good-bys began.

"So long, dear folks! I shall write. Don't you dare cry, Grandma.
I'll be back next lilac time. Remember, oh, just remember, all you
Green Valley folks, that I'll be back when the lilacs bloom again!"

Nanny's voice, husky with laughter and tears, rippled back to the
cluster of old neighbors waving hats and handkerchiefs. They watched
her standing in the golden light of the car doorway until the train
vanished from their sight. Then they drifted away in twos and threes.

From the dimmest corner of the observation platform a man had witnessed
the departure of Nanny Ainslee. He had heard Jim's song, had caught
the girl's farewells. And now he was delightedly repeating to himself
her promise--"I'll be back when the lilacs bloom again."

Then quite suddenly he stepped from the train and made his way to where
the magenta-pink and violet lights of Martin's drugstore glowed in the
night. He bought a soda and some magazines and asked the druggist an
odd question.

"When," asked the stranger, smiling, "will the lilacs bloom again in
this town?"

Martin, who for hours had been rushing madly about, waiting on the
thirsty crowd of stalled visitors, stopped to stare. But he answered.
Something in the mysteriously rich face of the big, brown boy made him
eager to answer.

"From the middle of next May on into early June."

The stranger smiled his thanks in a way that made Martin look at his
clerk with a mournful eye.

"Jee-rusalem! Now, Eddie, why can't you smile like that? Say, if I
had _that_ fellow behind this soda counter I'd be doing a rushing
business every night."

When the Limited was again winging its way toward the Golden West and
train life had settled down to its regular routine, one dining-car
waiter was saying to another:

"Yes, sah--the gentleman in Number 7 is sure the mighty-nicest white
man I eber did see. And he sure does like rice. Says he comes from
India where everybody eats it all the time. I ain' sure but wh