The flapjack-and-egg breakfast that came with my room put me in better spirits, and when I headed for the train station, I reread the CCC leaflet as I walked.

Mostly it went into what I’d already learned about the CCC’s mission, which I suspected sounded better on paper than put into practice. If the things wrong with the country could be fixed by a bunch of boys working together, then somebody would have fixed them by now.

The leaflet also included some parts I surely wished I could share with Beatty—especially the suggestions for items enrollees might want to bring with them: “a suit for excursions away from camp.”

A suit! As if a fellow signing on for relief work would be likely to own one of those!

The list ended by saying, “If you play any small musical instrument such as a guitar, mandolin, ukulele, or harmonica, you are encouraged to bring it for use during recreational periods.”

Maybe I’d hang on to the thing, and enclose it when I wrote her. Beatty, maybe I’d say, would you be so good as to ship me my mandolin? I seemed to have forgotten to pack it.

I enjoyed imagining how she’d laugh. We always found the same stuff funny.

I’d write her soon as I knew I’d be able to make a go of things.

I crossed to the depot, where a stocky guy already waited on the wooden platform. He wore town clothes—khaki pants and a pressed cotton shirt—but the band of pale skin at the top of his forehead gave him away as someone who spent his days outside, with a hat on. Ranch or farm kid, I guessed. A beat-up suitcase with a rope tied around it stood at his feet.

He glanced at the leaflet in my hand and asked, “You for the CCC?”

I said I was. “You?”

“Yeah. You got everything on that list?”

“Nope. Missing the mandolin. Someone was dreaming, huh?” I put out my hand. “I’m Moss Trawnley.”

“Nate Lundgren.”

A girl came running toward us, her coat flying open behind her in the morning’s stiff breeze.

“My sister,” Nate said, not sounding surprised. He yelled, “You can slow down! I’m not going anywhere in the next minute.”

She reached us in a flurry of words. “I didn’t want to miss you. I bought you a scarf. I got it sixty percent off because of damage, but it’s warm.”

“You didn’t need to spend your money on me,” Nate told her.

“Yes, I did,” she said. “I ruined your old one.”

“Ruined it mucking out the barnyard while I read. Maggie, this here’s Moss Trawnley. Moss, my sister, who’s got more mind of her own than a female ought.”

“And it’s a good thing for you I do,” she told him.

I said, “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Lundgren.”