The old man sat quietly on the rusty red bench by the train tracks. His back bowed at the top so that his head hung forward, giving him the look of always being interested in something.

He wore a grey flat cap over his white hair and blue overalls over his plaid, long-sleeved shirt. This was his uniform, and he had worn it every day of his 30 years of work at the train station.

He was proud of his job taking care of the little station, handing out tickets to the excited children and tending to the old building. As he sat on the bench, he gazed at the tracks, at the old oak trees, and at the little robin’s nest on the largest branch that hung out over the tracks. The old, hunched man sighed contentedly.

He loved the quiet hour before the customers arrived. Loved the still of the air, the light morning calls of the birds, and the sound of the gentle brook that ran parallel to the tracks.

Slowly, with the creaking of bones, he stood. He took his worn broom with “Steffleheimer’s” imprinted in the handle into his hands. A nearby dormouse scurried back into the bushes as the sound of his “sweep, sweep, sweep” down the concrete echoed off the old train station walls.

As the old man reached the end of the building, he leaned his Steffleheimer’s broom once again against the bricks. He turned the corner and stood still, an admiring look on his face.

Here were his treasures.

An array of countless old tin cans - tomato soup, green beans, lentils, minestrone, and many more - sitting in no particular configuration. Each can had been carefully filled with dirt and fitted with drainage holes at the bottom. And in each can the old man had planted a flower.