TRAVELING NORTH
As a result of many letters back and forth between Mr. Fairfield and the
Northern aunts, Patty stood one morning on the platform of the railway
station, all ready to depart for her new homes.
It was the first week in December, and the little girl shivered as she
thought of the arctic cold to which she imagined herself going.
"Of course they'll meet me in a sleigh, won't they, papa?" she said.
"Perhaps so, but I doubt it," he replied. "They don't have such snowstorms
in Jersey now as they used to when I was a boy. Last winter they had no
sleighing at all. But here comes Miss Powers; let us go to greet her." Miss
Powers was a sharp-faced lady who came marching along the platform with a
firm step.
Patty was to travel in her care, not because she was an especially
desirable traveling companion, but because she was the only acquaintance of
the Fairfields who chanced to be going North at that time.
"Good-morning," she cried, "are you here already? I was certain you'd be
late and miss the train. Not a very pleasant day, is it? I wish we had
planned to go to-morrow instead. Why, Patty, you are wearing your best hat!
You'll spoil it, I'm sure. Have you your trunk check? Give it to me, you'll
certainly lose it else."
"Here it is, Miss Powers," said Mr. Fairfield, pleasantly, "and I dare say
you will prove more responsible than my rattle-pated daughter."
He squeezed Patty's hand affectionately as he said this, and a great wave
of homesickness came over the child's heart. She caught her father round
the neck, and vainly trying to keep the tears back, she whispered,
"Oh, papa, dear, let me stay with you. I don't want to go to Aunt
Isabel's,--I know she's horrid, and I just want you, you, _you_!"
Miss Powers was shocked at this exhibition of emotion, and said with
asperity:
"Come, come, it's too late to talk like that now. And a big girl like you
ought to be ashamed to act so babyish."
But Mr. Fairfield kissed Patty tenderly and said: "Dear, we're going to be
very brave, you know,--and besides, you're only going for a visit. All
people go visiting at some time in their lives, and next December I'll be
shaking the dust of Richmond off of my feet and coming after you,
pell-mell." Patty smiled through her tears, and then the train came tooting
along and they all climbed aboard.
As the train waited for ten minutes, Mr. Fairfield had ample time to find
the seats engaged for the travelers, and to arrange their hand-luggage in
the racks provided for it. Then he bade Miss Powers good-bye, and, turning
to Patty, clasped her in his arms as he said:
"Pattykins, good-bye. The year will soon pass away, and then we'll have a
jolly little home together. Be brave and gentle always, and as a parting
gift I give you this little box which contains a talisman to help you bear
any troubles or difficulties that may come to you."
As he spoke, he put into Patty's hand a small parcel sealed at each end
with red sealing-wax.
"Don't open it now," he continued. "Keep it just as it is until you reach
Aunt Isabel's. Then after you have gone to your room on the first night of
your stay with her, open the box and see what is in it."
Then the warning whistle blew, and with a final embrace of his little
daughter, Mr. Fairfield left the car.
The train started, and for a moment Patty saw her father waving his
handkerchief, and then he was lost to her sight. She felt just like
indulging in a good cry, but Miss Powers would have none of that.
The worthy spinster was already opening her bag and preparing to make
herself comfortable for her journey.
"Now, Patty," she said, but not unkindly, "you've left your pa behind, and
you're going away from him to stay a year. You've got to go, you can't help
yourself, so you might just as well make the best of it, and be cheerful
instead of miserable. So now that's settled, and you'd better get out your
books and games or whatever you brought along to amuse yourself with."
Miss Powers had taken off her hat and gloves and arranged a small balsam
pillow behind her head. She put on her glasses, and opened a book in which
she at once became absorbed.
Patty, being thus left to her own devices, became much interested in the
novelty of her surroundings. It was great fun to lean back against the
high-cushioned seat and look out of the window at the trees and plantations
and towns as they flew by. This kept her amused until noontime, when a
waiter came through the car banging a gong.
Miss Powers shut her book with a snap, and announced that they would go to
the dining-car for their lunch.
This was even more fun, for it seemed so queer to Patty to sit at a table
and eat, while at the same time she was flying through the country at such
break-neck speed.
"It's like the enchanted carpet, isn't it, Miss Powers?" she said, as they
slid through a thick grove and then out into the sunshine again.
"What is? what carpet?" asked Miss Powers, looking down at the floor of the
car.
"Oh, not a real carpet," said Patty, politely repressing a smile at the
elder lady's ignorance of fairy-lore. "I mean, for us to go scooting along
so fast is like the travelers on the magicians' carpet. Don't you know, the
carpet would move of itself wherever he told it to."
"H'm," commented Miss Powers, "that would be a good kind of a carpet to
have at housecleaning time, wouldn't it?"
This prosaic disposition of the magic carpet quite shocked Patty, but she
adapted herself to the idea, and said, "Yes, indeed; you could just say,
'Carpet, get up and go out and hang yourself on the clothes-line, and then
shake yourself well and come back again,'--oh, that would be convenient."
Miss Powers smiled in an absent-minded sort of way, and Patty chattered on,
half to herself and half to her companion.
"But suppose the carpet should be naughty and refuse to go,--that wouldn't
be so pleasant."
"Or suppose it should run away and never come back?"
This latter remark was made by a strange voice, and Patty looked up quickly
to see the man who was seated opposite, smiling in a very friendly way.
He was an elderly gentleman with white hair and beard, and it seemed to
Patty's vivid imagination that he looked like Noah, or some other of the
ancient patriarchs.
"That would be a great joke on the housekeeper," Patty answered, feeling
already well acquainted with the pleasant old gentleman, "and I suppose she
would have to get a new carpet."
"Or have a hard-wood floor laid in her room," he responded.
"Or live on a bare floor," said Miss Powers. "I think it would be a very
slack housekeeper who would let her carpets shake themselves, and she would
probably be too lazy or too poor to replace the ones that ran away."
Mr. Noah, as Patty called the old man in her mind, laughed heartily at
this, and during the rest of the luncheon hour proved himself a genial and
entertaining companion.
The day passed quickly, and at bedtime Patty was quite tired enough to
welcome the thought of tucking herself away in one of those queer-looking
bunks that the porter was arranging.
"I'll sleep on the top shelf," she said, gleefully, "may I, Miss Powers?"
"I'll be very glad if you will, child,--I've no desire to climb up there.
Ugh, I don't think I can sleep anywhere on this bobbety-bobble train."
Then the porter brought a small step-ladder, and this delighted Patty
beyond measure.
"Ho!" said she, "now I'm 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' 'A-hitchet, a-hatchet,
a-up I go'!" and with two jumps and a spring she landed in the upper berth.
"Now," she said to herself, "I know how Alice felt when she grew so large
that she filled up the whole room. Let me see, what did she do? She put one
arm out the window and one foot up the chimney. Well, I can't do that, and
I don't see any little cakes to eat, as she did, that will make me grow
smaller, so I s'pose I'll just have to scrounch around till I'm ready for
bed, and then slide in. I'm sure I shan't sleep, it's all so noisy and
exciting."
But when she finally straightened herself out on the coarse,
cinder-sprinkled linen of the Pullman, the chink-a-chunk of the train
changed to a lullaby, and in about two minutes Patty was sound asleep.