How hot it is, how dusty—how hungry we all are. I hope we shall soon
stop to dinner, for our stock of crackers and patience is exhausted, and
nothing is left of the oranges but the peel. Ah, here we are! Only ten
minutes to eat; what _can_ the conductor be thinking about; does he take
us for boa-constrictors? or does he think that, like the cows, we can
store in our food and chew it whenever we get a chance? The fact is, he
does not think any thing about it; all he cares for is to pack us all in
the cars again and start at the last of the ten minutes. So I suppose we
must elbow our way into the dining-room with the rest and scramble for a
seat! “Beef, pork, mutton, veal, chicken, what’ll you have, ma’am?”
“What’ll I have? oh, any thing, something, only be quick about it,
please, for this little girl looks paler than I like to see her. Lamb
and green peas, that will do; but, oh, dear, where’s our knife and fork?
Turn round, Nelly, take that spoon and begin on the peas, we can’t stop
for trifles. There’s that horrid fizzing of the car boiler, which warns
us that we must swallow something or go hungry till bedtime. And here’s
a custard, but no spoon; next time I travel I will carry a knife, fork,
and spoon in my pocket. I wonder if the people who keep this
eating-place forget these things on purpose, so that we need not eat our
ten minutes’ worth of food? and we so hungry, too.” “Have an orange,
ma’am?” “Of course I will: I have not had any thing else.” “Passengers
ready—passengers please settle.” Poor Nelly swallows the last bit of
custard and looks wistfully at those we leave behind, and we pay for our
comfortless dinner, and scramble back into the cars. “All aboard.” Off
we go again. The fat old lady in front of us goes to sleep; the
gentlemen get out their newspapers. I wonder do they know how many
people have ruined their eyesight trying to read in the cars? It is a
losing way of gaining time, Mr. Editor; take my advice and put your
papers in your pockets to read when you get to the next stopping-place.
There is a woman taking out a needle and thread to sew—that is worse
yet—but every body imagines they know best about such things, so I’ll
not interfere. Here comes a boy into the cars with some books to sell.
Little Nelly pinches my arm slily and looks very wise; she has spelt
out, with her bright eyes, among the other books. “Fern Leaves.” Nelly
is a bit of a rogue, so she says to the boy, “Have you Fern Leaves?”
“Yes, miss, and Second Series and Little Ferns, too.” And he hands them
to me. Nelly touches my foot under the seat, and looks as grave as a
judge, while I turn over the pages, and when I ask the little boy who
wrote Fern Leaves, she does not laugh, but looks straight out of the
window at a cow munching grass by the road side, as if it were a matter
of no concern at all to her. The little bookseller repeats my question
after me, “Who wrote Fern Leaves?” and looks bewildered, then, after
scratching his head, he answers, with the air of one who has hit it,
“Fanny’s Portfolio, ma’am.” We did not buy the books, we had seen them
before. But not till the last rag of the little bookseller’s torn jacket
had fluttered through the door, did Nelly’s gravity relax: you should
have seen, then, the comical look she gave me behind her pocket
handkerchief, and heard her ringing laugh, well worth writing a book
for, and which nobody understood but we two, and that was the best part
of the joke.
By-and-by there was a quarrel in the cars about seats, for selfish
people travel as well as the good-natured. A cross-looking man, with a
wife to match, had monopolized two entire seats, in one of which they
sat, and on the other placed their feet and their carpet-bags. It was
not long before a large, well-dressed gentleman, with his wife,
requested leave to sit on the seat occupied by the cross gentleman’s
carpet-bags; to which the cross man replied, with a growl, and without
taking down his feet, that that seat was engaged to some persons who had
just stepped out. This was a fib; but the gentleman supposing it to be
true, led the lady back to the sunny seat which she had just left, and
which had given her a bad headache. An hour after, the big gentleman
stepped up to the cross man and says, “Your friends are a long time
coming, sir.” You should have seen the cross man then; how he sprang to
his feet like a little bristly terrier dog, which he strikingly
resembled; how he tauntingly asked the big, well-dressed man, how it
happened that such an aristocrat as he did not hire an entire car for
his lordship and her ladyship (meaning his wife). “I should have done
so,” replied the gentleman, in a very low tone, as he turned on his
heel, “had I known that _pigs_ were allowed to travel in this car.” The
laugh and the whisper, “Good enough for him!” which followed, might have
abashed any body but our terrier, who stepped up to the principal
laugher, who sat next me, and putting his face close to his, hissed
between his shut teeth, “Shut up!” Nelly did not know what “shut up”
meant, but she knew the meaning of the doubled-up fist which the terrier
thrust into our neighbor’s face, and looked up at me to see whether
there was any danger of our being thumped or not. Seeing only a
smothered smile on my face, and the conductor approaching to set matters
to rights, she soon became quiet.
On we flew, past houses, fences, trees, cows, sheep, and horses, some of
whom pricked up their ears for a minute, then went lazily on munching
grass, as much as to say, “That’s an old story;” others, finding an
excuse in it for a frolic, raced over the meadows, and kicked up their
heels, as if to say, “Just as if nobody could run but you!”
[Illustration]
Hark! what’s that? Nobody answers; but the cars tip half-way over, we
are all thrown in a heap on the floor, the window-glass comes smashing
in, and the hot steam rushes in. A great fat man doubles me up over a
seat, trying, like a great coward as he is, to climb over me to get out
the window. We don’t know yet what has happened; but, “Get out of the
cars!” says the conductor, “quick!” The window is too small to let out
the fat man, so he kindly allows me the use of my ribs again, which must
have been made of good material, or they would have been broken as he
bent me over that seat. I snatch Nelly, poor pale Nelly! who never
screams or speaks, for she is a real little Spartan—and we all clamber
out into the tall, wet meadow-grass. Then, the danger over, great big
tears roll out of Nelly’s eyes, and with an hysterical laugh, as she
looks at the broken cars, she sobs out, in a half sorrowful, half droll
way, this nursery snatch—“All of a sudden, the old thing bursted!”
“Any body hurt?” ask the pale, anxious passengers, as they creep out one
by one. “No—nobody’s hurt.” “Ah yes—ah yes—the poor brakeman is badly
scalded—poor fellow.” Now the country people come flocking out of the
farm houses—good, honest, kind souls—and they make a litter, and they
put the wounded man upon it, and bear him slowly away over the green
fields, under the drooping trees, carefully, carefully, heeding his
groans, into the nearest farm-house; then the doctor’s chaise drives
hurriedly up, and after a time, word is brought us that he will not die.
Little Nelly cries and laughs again, for she is very nervous from the
fright. And the conductor says, “Have patience, ladies; we will soon get
another car;” and some go into barns, and some go into houses, for the
rain is falling; and the poor watchmaker, whose trunk was broken to
pieces, stands looking at the fragments of broken watches, and saying
big words about damages and the railroad company. But every body else is
so glad to be alive, and to be in possession of sound limbs, that they
do not think of their baggage. And after a while the new car comes, for
every body helps us, and we all climb up into it, and the color comes
back to the lips of the ladies; and the great fat coward, who bent me
double over the seat, takes precious good care to sit near the door,
ready for a jump if any thing else turns up, or turns over.