The World in a Train by Francisco B. Icasiano

One Sunday I entrained for Baliwag, a town in Bulacan which can well afford to hold two fiestas a year without a qualm.I took the train partly because I am disfavour in favor of the government-owned railroad, partly because I am allowed comparative otto gay in a coach, and finally because trains sometimes leave and arrive harmonise to schedule.In the coach I found a little world, a share of the abstraction called humanity whom we are supposed to beloved and live for. I had previously arranged to divide the idle hour or so mingled with cultivating my neglected Christianity and smoothing out the rough edges of my nature with the aid of pleasurable sights without the rolling wheels, the flying huts and trees and light-green palay seedlings and carabaos along the way.Inertia, I suppose, and the sort of truth we moderns know make falling in love with my immediate neighbors much a matter of severe strain and effort to me.Let me give a sketchy picture of the little world whose co mpany Mang Kiko shared in moments which soon passed away affecting most of us.First, in that respect came to my nonice iii husky individuals who dusted their put furiously with their handkerchiefs without regard to hygiene or the frat of men. It gave me no little annoyance that on such a muteness morning the unpleasant positions in other peoples ways should claim my attention.Then there was a harmless-looking middle-aged man in green camisa de chino with rolled sleeves who moldiness have entered asleep. When I noticed him he was already snugly fix in a corner seat, with his slippered feet comfortably planted on the opposite seat, all the while his head danced anddangled with the motion of the train. I could not, for the love of me, imagine how he would look if he were awake.A tike of six in the next seat must have shared with me in speculating active the dreams of this sleeping man in green. Was he dreaming of the Second founding War or the price of eggs? Had he any worri es intimately the permanent dominion status or the final outcome of the struggles of the masses, or was it merely the arrangement of the scales on a fighting roasters legs that brought that frown on his face?But the party that most engaged my attention was a family of eight composed of a short simply efficacious founding father, foursome very young children, mother, grandmother, and another cleaning lady who must have been the efficient fathers sister. They distri only whened themselves on four benches you know the kind of seats facing all(prenominal) other so that half the passengers travel backward. The more I looked at the short but young and efficient father the shorter his parts looked to me. His movements were immobile and short, too. He removed his coat, folded it carefully and slung it on the back of his seat. Then he pulled out his wallet from the hip pocket and counted his money while his wife and the rest of his group watched the ritual without a word.Then the s hort, young, and efficient father stood up and pulled out two banana leaf bundles from a bamboo basket and disruption out both bundles on one bench and log lunch was ready at ten oclock. With the efficient father leading the charge, the children (except the shaver in his grandmothers arms) began to dig away with little encouragement and aid from the elders. In a short while the skirmish was over, the enemy shrimps, omelet, rice and love apple sauce were routed out, save for a few shrimps and some rice leave for the grandmother to handle in her own style later.Then came the water-fetching ritual. The father, with a sparkler in hand, led the march to the train faucet, followed by three children whose faces hushed showed the marks of a hard-fought-battle. In passing between me and a person, hence engaged in a casual conversation with me, the short but efficient father made a courteous gesture which is placid good to see inthese democratic days he curing from the hips and, dro pping both hands, made an opening in the air between my collocutor and me a gesture which in unspoiled places means Excuse Me.In one of the stations where the train stopped, a bended old woman in black boarded the train. As it moved away, the old woman went around the coach, begging holding every prospective Samaritan by the arm, and stretching off her gnarled hand in the familiar fashion so revolting to me at that time. There is something in begging which destroys some fiber in most men. Every time you drop a penny into a beggars palm you help degrade a man and make it more difficult for him to rise with dignity. . .There was something in his beggars eye which seemed to demand. Now do your duty. And I did. Willy-nilly I dropped a coin and thereby alter my life with repulsion. Is this Christianity? Blessed are the poor . . . But with what speed did that bent old woman cross the platform into the next coach plot of ground thus engaged in unwholesome thought, I felt myself jerked as the train made a curve to the right. The yearling of the family of eight befogged his balance and caught the short but efficient father off-guard. In an vociferous all his efficiency was employed in collecting the shrieking toddler from under his seat. The child had, in no time, developed two stretch bumps on the head, upon which was applied a moist piece of cloth. There were no reproaches, no words spoken. The discipline in the family was remarkable, or was it because they considered the head as a minor anatomical appendage and was therefore nor worth the eat away?Occasionally, when the childs crying rose above the din of the locomotive and the clinkety-clank of the wheels on the rails, the father would jog about a bit without blushing, look at the bumps on his childs head, shake his own, and move his lips saying, Tsk, Tsk. And nothing more.Fairly tired of assuming the minor responsibilities of my neighbors in this little world in motion, I looked into the distant horizon where the game Cordilleras merged into the blue of the sky. There I rested my thoughtsupon the billowing bills and grey of the clouds, lightly remarking upon their being a trial to us, although they may not know it. We each would mind our own business and suffer in silence for the littlest mistakes of others laughing at their ways if we happened to be in a position to suspend our emotion and view the whole scene as a god would or, we could weep for other men if we are the fashion to shed copious tears over the whole tragic aspect of a world thrown out of joint.It is strange how human kindness operates. We assume an attitude of complete indifference to utter strangers whom we have seen but not met. We claim that they are the hardest to fall in love with in the normal exercise of Christian charity. Then a little child falls from a seat, or a beggar stretches forth a gnarled hand, or three husky men dust their seats and we are, despite our pretensions, affected. Why not? If even a sleeping man who does nothing touches our life