This incident occurred during our trip to the US in 2013. My husband and I decided on visiting Cape Cod, a beautiful sea resort, which is about three hours drive from the city of Boston. Our daughter who then resided in Salem close to Boston dropped us off at 8 am at one of the pick-up points of the tour bus in Boston. We decided on returning home on our own in the evening as we thought that we could catch a local train to Salem from Boston. Our daughter insisted that she would pick us up in the evening but we were confident of our ability to retrace our way and not wanting to trouble her, refused her offer.
We had a great time in Cape Cod and returned to Boston at six in the evening. We thought that the Boston commuter rail station was close to the last but one stage before the drop-off point and so got off the bus at that stage. My husband has a very good memory and a keen sense of direction and so I blindly followed him, without knowing where we were heading to. We found ourselves to be just going round in a maze, with the station nowhere in sight! Being a Sunday, the roads were deserted with not many people walking around. We did find a few but initially were a bit hesitant to ask strangers for directions. Finally, having no other option, we approached a gentleman, who himself was struggling with a road map and so our query drew a blank! We started getting worried. We had no cell phone to call our daughter either.
Next, we saw a young American guy coming from the opposite direction. We approached him and explained the predicament in which we were placed. On hearing our problem, he personally took us to the station, which was just a few blocks away. On reaching there, we found to our dismay that the dollar coins which we inserted in the slot of the ticket machine just fell through the outlet without printing our tickets.
Another guy who was standing near the machine told us that the machine was out of order. Immediately on hearing this, this good American Samaritan, even without thinking for a moment, took out his credit card and inserted it in the card-ticketing machine. “Here you go,” said he, with a smile and handed over the tickets to us. We did give him the ticket money, but he refused our offer and we had the feeling that he was not expecting it from us. “No Thanks,” said he and accompanied us right up to the entry point of the platform.
He checked the train timings and told us to hurry up in order to catch the train which was departing within the next few minutes. “Goodbye and have a great day,” said he and waved to us. We both were very much moved by this gesture of his and thanked him effusively and shook hands with him, which he acknowledged with a friendly smile.
On reaching home, we told our folks about this and they were thrilled on hearing about the incident and inquired whether we had asked his name, so that we could acknowledge his kind and humane gesture through Boston Globe, a leading news paper in Boston. Alas, we had forgotten to get his name in the great hurry and confusion at the time of our departure!
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