SCENE: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston and Albany Road. The
curtains are drawn before most of the berths; from the hooks and rods
hang hats, bonnets, bags, bandboxes, umbrellas, and other travelling
gear; on the floor are boots of both sexes, set out for THE PORTER to
black. THE PORTER is making up the beds in the upper and lower berths
adjoining the seats on which a young mother, slender and pretty, with a
baby asleep on the seat beside her, and a stout old lady, sit confronting
each other--MRS. AGNES ROBERTS and her aunt MARY.
MRS. ROBERTS. Do you always take down your back hair, aunty?
AUNT MARY. No, never, child; at least not since I had such a fright
about it once, coming on from New York. It's all well enough to take
down your back hair if it _is_ yours; but if it isn't, your head's the
best place for it. Now, as I buy mine of Madame Pierrot--
MRS. ROBERTS. Don't you _wish_ she wouldn't advertise it as _human_
hair? It sounds so pokerish--like human flesh, you know.
AUNT MARY. Why, she couldn't call it _in_human hair, my dear.
MRS. ROBERTS (thoughtfully). No--just _hair_.
AUNT MARY. Then people might think it was for mattresses. But, as I was
saying, I took it off that night, and tucked it safely away, as I
supposed, in my pocket, and I slept sweetly till about midnight, when I
happened to open my eyes, and saw something long and black crawl off my
bed and slip under the berth. _Such_ a shriek as I gave, my dear! "A
snake! a snake! oh, a snake!" And everybody began talking at once, and
some of the gentlemen swearing, and the porter came running with the
poker to kill it; and all the while it was that ridiculous switch of
mine, that had worked out of my pocket. And glad enough I was to grab it
up before anybody saw it, and say I must have been dreaming.
MRS. ROBERTS. Why, aunty, how funny! How _could_ you suppose a serpent
could get on board a sleeping-car, of all places in the world!
AUNT MARY. That was the perfect absurdity of it.
THE PORTER. Berths ready now, ladies.
MRS. ROBERTS (to THE PORTER, who walks away to the end of the car, and
sits down near the door). Oh, thank you. Aunty, do you feel nervous the
least bit?
AUNT MARY. Nervous? No. Why?
MRS. ROBERTS. Well, I don't know. I suppose I've been worked up a
little about meeting Willis, and wondering how he'll look, and all. We
can't _know_ each other, of course. It doesn't stand to reason that if
he's been out there for twelve years, ever since I was a child, though
we've corresponded regularly--at least _I_ have--that he could recognize
me; not at the first glance, you know. He'll have a full beard; and then
I've got married, and here's the baby. Oh, _no_! he'll never guess who
it is in the world. Photographs really amount to nothing in such a case.
I wish we were at home, and it was all over. I wish he had written some
particulars, instead of telegraphing from Ogden, "Be with you on the 7
A.M., Wednesday."
AUNT MARY. Californians always telegraph, my dear; they never think of
writing. It isn't expensive enough, and it doesn't make your blood run
cold enough to get a letter, and so they send you one of those miserable
yellow despatches whenever they can--those printed in a long string, if
possible, so that you'll be _sure_ to die before you get to the end of
it. I suppose your brother has fallen into all those ways, and says
"reckon" and "ornary" and "which the same," just like one of Mr. Bret
Harte's characters.
MRS. ROBERTS. But it isn't exactly our not knowing each other, aunty,
that's worrying me; that's something that could be got over in time. What
is simply driving me distracted is Willis and Edward meeting there when
I'm away from home. Oh, how _could_ I be away! and why _couldn't_ Willis
have given us fair warning? I would have hurried from the ends of the
earth to meet him. I don't believe poor Edward ever saw a Californian;
and he's so quiet and preoccupied, I'm sure he'd never get on with
Willis. And if Willis is the least loud, he wouldn't like Edward. Not
that I suppose he _is_ loud; but I don't believe he knows anything about
literary men. But you can see, aunty, can't you, how very anxious I must
be? Don't you see that I ought to have been there when Willis and Edward
met, so as to--to--well, to _break_ them to each other, don't you know?
AUNT MARY. Oh, you needn't be troubled about that, Agnes. I dare say
they've got on perfectly well together. Very likely they're sitting down
to the unwholesomest hot supper this instant that the ingenuity of man
could invent.
MRS. ROBERTS. Oh, do you _think_ they are, aunty? Oh, if I could _only_
believe they were sitting down to a hot supper together now, I should be
_so_ happy! They'd be sure to get on if they were. There's nothing like
eating to make men friendly with each other. Don't you know, at
receptions, how they never have anything to say to each other till the
escalloped oysters and the chicken salad appear; and then how sweet they
are as soon as they've helped the ladies to ice? Oh, thank you, _thank_
you, aunty, for thinking of the hot supper. It's such a relief to my
mind! You can understand, can't you, aunty dear, how anxious I must have
been to have my only brother and my only--my husband--get on nicely
together? My life would be a wreck, simply a wreck, if they didn't. And
Willis and I not having seen each other since I was a child makes it all
the worse. I do _hope_ they're sitting down to a hot supper.
AN ANGRY VOICE from the next berth but one. I wish people in sleeping-
cars--
A VOICE from the berth beyond that. You're mistaken in your premises,
sir. This is a waking-car. Ladies, go on, and oblige an eager listener.
[Sensation, and smothered laughter from the other berths.]
MRS. ROBERTS (after a space of terrified silence, in a loud whisper to
her AUNT.) What horrid things! But now we really must go to bed. It
_was_ too bad to keep talking. I'd no idea my voice was getting so loud.
Which berth will you have, aunty? I'd better take the upper one,
because--
AUNT MARY (whispering). No, no; I must take that, so that you can be
with the baby below.
MRS. ROBERTS. Oh, how good you are, Aunt Mary! It's too bad; it is
really. I can't let you.
AUNT MARY. Well, then, you must; that's all. You know how that child
tosses and kicks about in the night. You never can tell where his head's
going to be in the morning, but you'll probably find it at the foot of
the bed. I couldn't sleep an instant, my dear, if I thought that boy was
in the upper berth; for I'd be sure of his tumbling out over you. Here,
let me lay him down. [She lays the baby in the lower berth.] There! Now
get in, Agnes--do, and leave me to my struggle with the attraction of
gravitation.
MRS. ROBERTS. Oh, _poor_ aunty, how will you ever manage it? I _must_
help you up.
AUNT MARY. No, my dear; don't be foolish. But you may go and call the
porter, if you like. I dare say he's used to it.
[MRS. ROBERTS goes and speak timidly to THE PORTER, who fails at first to
understand, then smiles broadly, accepts a quarter with a duck of his
head, and comes forward to AUNT MARY'S side.]
MRS. ROBERTS. Had he better give you his hand to rest your foot in,
while you spring up as if you were mounting horseback?
AUNT MARY (with disdain). _Spring_! My dear, I haven't sprung for a
quarter of a century. I shall require every fibre in the man's body. His
hand, indeed! You get in first, Agnes.