THE COLLISION
"Won't we have fun, Jan, when we get to the ranch?"
"I guess so, Teddy. But I don't like it about those Indians."
"Oh, didn't you hear Daddy say they were tame ones--like the kind in
the circus and Wild West show? They won't hurt you, Jan."
"Well, I don't like 'em. They've got such funny painted faces."
"Not the tame ones, Jan. Anyhow I'll stay with you."
The Curlytops were talking as they sat together in the railroad car
which was being pulled rapidly by the engine out toward the big West,
where Uncle Frank's ranch was. In the seat behind them was Mother
Martin, holding Trouble, who was asleep, while Daddy Martin was also
slumbering.
It was quite a long ride from Cresco to Rockville, which was in
Montana. It would take the Curlytops about four days to make the
trip, perhaps longer if the trains were late. But they did not mind,
for they had comfortable coaches in which to travel. When they were
hungry there was the dining-car where they could get something to
eat, and when they were sleepy there was the sleeping-car, in which
the colored porter made such funny little beds out of the seats.
Jan and Ted thought it quite wonderful. For, though they had
traveled in a sleeping-car before, and had seen the porter pull out
the seats, let down the shelf overhead and take out the blankets and
pillows to make the bed, still they never tired of watching.
There were many other things to interest the Curlytops and Trouble
on this journey to Uncle Frank's ranch. Of course there was always
something to see when they looked out of the windows of the cars. At
times the train would pass through cities, stopping at the stations
to let passengers get off and on. But it was not the cities that
interested the children most. They liked best to see the fields and
woods through which they passed.
In some of the fields were horses, cows or sheep, and while the
children did not see any such animals in the woods, except perhaps
where the wood was a clump of trees near a farm, they always hoped
they might.
Very often, when the train would rattle along through big fields,
and then suddenly plunge into a forest, Jan would call:
"Maybe we'll see one now, Ted!"
"Oh, maybe so!" he would exclaim.
Then the two Curlytops would flatten their noses against the window
and peer out.
"What are you looking for?" asked Mother Martin, the first time she
saw the children do this.
"Indians," answered Teddy, never turning around, for the train was
still in the wood and he did not want to miss any chance.
"Indians!" exclaimed his mother, "Why, what in the world put into
your head the idea that we should see Indians?"
"Well, Uncle Frank said there were Indians out West, even if they
weren't wild ones," answered Teddy, "and me and Jan wants to see
some."
"Oh, you won't find any Indians around _here_," said Daddy Martin with
a laugh, as he laid aside the paper he was reading. "It is true there
are some out West, but we are not there yet, and, if we were, you
would hardly find the Indians so near a railroad."
"Can't we ever see any?" Jan wanted to know. "I don't just like
Indians, 'cause they've always got a gun or a knife--I mean in
pictures," she hastened to add. "Course I never saw a real Indian,
'ceptin' maybe in a circus."
"You'll see some real ones after a while," her mother told her, and
then the children stopped pressing their noses flat against the car
windows, for the train had come out of the wood and was nearing a
large city. There, Jan and Ted felt sure, no Indians would be seen.
"But we'll keep watch," said Jan to her brother, "and maybe I'll see
an Indian first."
"And maybe I will! We'll both watch!" he agreed.
Something else that gave the children enjoyment was the passage
through the train, every now and then, of the boy who sold candy,
books and magazines. He would pass along between the seats, dropping
into them, or into the laps of the passengers, packages of candy, or
perhaps a paper or book. This was to give the traveler time to look
at it, and make up his or her mind whether or not to buy it.
A little later the boy would come along to collect the things he had
left, and get the money for those the people kept for themselves. Ted
and Jan were very desirous, each time, that the boy should sell
something, and once, when he had gone through the car and had taken
in no money, he looked so disappointed that Jan whispered to her
father:
"Won't you please buy something from him?"
"Buy what?" asked Mr. Martin.
"A book or some candy from the newsboy," repeated the little girl.
"He looks awful sorry."
"Hum! Well, it is too bad if he didn't sell anything," said Mr.
Martin. "I guess I can buy something. What would you like, something
to read or something to eat?"
"Some pictures to look at," suggested Teddy. "Then we can show 'em
to Trouble. Mother just gave us some cookies."
"Then I guess you've had enough to eat," laughed Mr. Martin. "Here,
boy!" he called. "Have you any picture books for these Curlytops of
mine?"
"Yes, I have some nice ones," answered the boy, and with a smile on
his face he went into the baggage car, where he kept his papers,
candy and other things, and soon came back with a gaily colored book,
at the sight of which Ted and Jan uttered sighs of delight.
"Dat awful p'etty!" murmured Trouble, and indeed the book did have
nice pictures in it.
Mr. Martin paid for it, and then Ted and Jan enjoyed very much
looking at it, with Trouble in the seat between them. He insisted on
seeing each picture twice, the page being no sooner turned over than
he wanted it turned back again.
But at last even he was satisfied, and then Ted and Jan went back to
their first game of looking out of the window for Indians or other
sights that might interest them.
Trouble slipped out of his seat between his brother and sister and
went to a vacant window himself. For a time he had good fun playing
with the window catch, and Mrs. Martin let him do this, having made
sure, at first, that he could not open the sash. Then they all forgot
Trouble for a while and he played by himself, all alone in one of the
seats.
A little later, when Teddy and Janet were tired of looking for the
Indians which they never saw, they were talking about the good times
they had had with Nicknack, and wondering if Uncle Frank would have a
goat, or anything like it, when Trouble came toddling up to their
seat.
"What you got?" asked Teddy of his little brother, noticing that
Baby William was chewing something. "What you got, Trouble?"
"Tandy," he said, meaning candy, of course.
"Oh, where'd you get it?" chimed in Jan.
"Nice boy gived it to me," Trouble answered. "Here," and he held the
package out to his brother and sister.
"Oh, wasn't that good of him!" exclaimed Jan. "It's nice chocolate
candy, too. I'll have another piece, Trouble."
They all had some and they were eating the sweet stuff and having a
good time, when they saw their father looking at them. There was a
funny smile on his face, and near him stood the newsboy, also smiling.
"Trouble, did you open a box of candy the boy left in your seat?"
asked Mr. Martin.
"Yes, he's got some candy," answered Jan. "He said the boy gave it
to him."
"I didn't mean for him to _open_ it," the boy said. "I left it
in his seat and I thought he'd ask his father if he could have it.
But when I came to get it, why, it was gone."
"Oh, what a funny little Trouble!" laughed Mother Martin. "He
thought the boy meant to give the candy to him, I guess. Well, Daddy,
I think you'll have to pay for it."
And so Mr. Martin did. The candy was not a gift after all, but
Trouble did not know that. However, it all came out right in the end.
They had been traveling two days, and now, toward evening of the
second day, the Curlytops were talking together about what they would
do when they got to Uncle Frank's ranch.
"I hope they have lots to eat there," sighed Ted, when he and Jan
had gotten off the subject of Indians. "I'm hungry right now."
"So'm I," added his sister. "But they'll call us to supper pretty
soon."
The children always eagerly waited for the colored waiter to come
through the coaches rumbling out in his bass voice:
"First call fo' supper in de dinin'-car!"
Or he might say "dinner" or "breakfast," or make it the "last call,"
just as it happened. Now it was time for the first supper call, and
in a little while the waiter came in.
"Eh? What's that? Time for supper _again_?" cried Daddy Martin,
awakening from a nap.
Trouble stretched and yawned in his mother's arms.
"I's hungry!" he said.
"So'm I!" cried Ted and Jan together.
"Shall we have good things to eat on Uncle Frank's ranch?" asked
Teddy, as they made ready to walk ahead to the dining-car.
"Of course!" his mother laughed. "Why are you worrying about that?"
"Oh, I just wanted to know," Teddy answered. "We had so many good
things at Cherry Farm and when we were camping with grandpa that I
want some out on the ranch."
"Well, I think we can trust to Uncle Frank," said Mr. Martin. "But
if you get too hungry, Teddy, you can go out and lasso a beefsteak or
catch a bear or deer and have him for breakfast."
"Is there bears out there, too?" asked Janet in a good deal of
excitement. "Bears and Indians?"
"Well, there may be a few bears here and there," her father said
with a smile, "but they won't hurt you if you don't hurt them. Now
we'll go and see what they have for supper here."
To the dining-car they went, and as they passed through one of the
coaches on their way Teddy and Janet heard a woman say to her little
girl:
"Look at those Curlytops, Ethel. Don't you wish you could have some
of their curl put into your hair?"
It was evening and the sun was setting. As the train sped along the
Curlytops could look through the windows off across the fields and
woods through which they passed.
"Isn't it just wonderful," said Mother Martin, "to think of sitting
down to a nice meal which is being cooked for us while the train goes
so fast? Imagine, children, how, years ago, the cowboys and hunters
had to go on horses all the distance out West, and carry their food
on their pony's back or in a wagon called a prairie schooner. How
much easier and quicker and more comfortable it is to travel this
way."
"I'd like to ride on a pony," said Teddy. "I wouldn't care how slow
he went."
"I imagine you wouldn't like it when night came," said his mother,
as she moved a plate so the waiter could set glasses of milk in front
of the children. "You wouldn't like to sleep on the ground with only
a blanket for a bed, would you?"
"'Deed I would!" declared Teddy. "I wish I had--"
Just then the train went around a curve, and, as it was traveling
very fast, the milk which Teddy was raising to his mouth slopped and
spilled down in his lap.
"Oh, Teddy!" cried his mother.
"I--I couldn't help it!" he exclaimed, as he wiped up as much of the
milk as he could on a napkin with which the waiter hastened to him.
"No, we know it was the train," said Daddy Martin. "It wouldn't have
happened if you had been traveling on pony-back, and had stopped to
camp out for the night before you got your supper; would it, Ted?" he
asked with a smile.
"No," said the little boy. "I wish we could camp out and hunt
Indians!"
"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed his mother. "Don't get such foolish
notions in your head. Anyway there aren't any Indians to hunt on
Uncle Frank's ranch, are there, Dick?" she asked her husband.
"Well, no, I guess not," he answered slowly. "There are some Indians
on their own ranch, or government reservation, not far from where
Uncle Frank has his horses and cattle, but I guess the Redmen never
bother anyone."
"Can we go to see 'em?" asked Teddy.
"I guess so," said Mr. Martin.
"Me go, too! Me like engines," murmured Trouble, who had also
spilled a little milk on himself.
"He thinks we're talking about _engines_--the kind that pull this
train!" laughed Ted. "I don't believe he ever saw a real _Indian."_
"No, Indians do not walk the streets of Cresco," said Mrs. Martin.
"But finish your suppers, children. Others are waiting to use the
table and we must not keep them too long."
There were many travelers going West--not all as far as the
Curlytops though--and as there was not room in the dining-car for all
of them to sit down at once they had to take turns. That is why the
waiter made one, two, and sometimes three calls for each meal, as he
went through the different coaches.
Supper over, the Martins went back to their place in the coach in
which they had ridden all day. They would soon go into the beds, or
berths, as they are called, to sleep all night. In the morning they
would be several hundred miles nearer Uncle Frank's ranch.
The electric lights were turned on, and then, for a while, Jan, Ted
and the others sat and talked.
They talked about the fun they had had when at Cherry Farm, of the
good times camping with grandpa and how they were snowed in, when
they wondered what had become of the strange lame boy who had called
at Mr. Martin's store one day.
"I wish Hal Chester could come out West with us" said Teddy, as the
porter came to tell them he would soon make up their beds. "He'd like
to hunt Indians with me."
Hal was a boy who had been cured of lameness at a Home for Crippled
Children, not far from Cherry Farm.
"I suppose you'll _dream_ of Indians," said Teddy's mother to
him. "You've _talked_ about them all day. But get ready for bed,
now. Traveling is tiresome for little folks."
Indeed after the first day Ted and Janet found it so. They wished,
more than once, that they could get out and run about, but they could
not except when the train stopped longer than usual in some big city.
Then their father would take them to the platform for a little run up
and down.
True they could walk up and down the aisle of the car, but this was
not much fun, as the coach swayed so they were tossed against the
sides of the seats and bruised.
"I'll be glad when we get to Uncle Frank's ranch," said Janet as she
crawled into the berth above her mother, who slept with Trouble.
"So'll I," agreed Teddy, who climbed up the funny little ladder to
go to bed in the berth above his father. "I want a pony ride!"
On through the night rumbled and roared the train, the whistle
sounding mournfully in the darkness as the engineer blew it at the
crossings.
Ted and Janet were sleeping soundly, Janet dreaming she had a new
doll, dressed like an Indian papoose, or baby, while Ted dreamed he
was on a wild pony that wanted to roll over and over instead of
galloping straight on.
Suddenly there was a loud crash that sounded through the whole
train. The engine whistled shrilly and then came a jar that shook up
everyone. Teddy found himself rolling out of his berth and he grabbed
the curtains just in time to save himself.
"Oh, Daddy!" he cried, "what's the matter?"
"What is it?" called Jan from her berth, while women in the coach
were screaming and men ere calling to one another.
"What is it, Dick?" cried Mrs. Martin.
"I think we've had a collision," answered her husband.
"Did our train bunk into another?" asked Ted.
"I'm afraid so," replied his father.