THE OLD LADY WITH THE BASKET
Time was flying and Mrs. White was becoming anxious. “Do pay the man,
Ned, and let us go on. Of course, the cow is not worth so much----”
“Why, mother, it’s a miserable little thing,” began Nat; but the farmer
burst in with a lot of threats as to what he would do if the money was
not immediately forthcoming, and Nat subsided.
“It is an imposition, Mrs. White,” warned her chauffeur. “I’ll go with
him, if he likes, and tell the judge about it.”
“I’ll pull you all,” threatened the farmer, boisterously, “if you don’t
fork over the money for my caow--yes, I will, by Jo!”
“If he talks fresh to mother,” growled Nat to Ned, “we ought to take
away his tin star and club and throw him into the ditch.”
“No use making a bad matter worse,” said Ned.
“It is unfair,” Dorothy said, warmly. “Fifty dollars is a lot of
money. Can’t we postpone our trip and go to court with this man?”
“Goodness, Dot!” exclaimed her aunt, who heard this. “Our berths are
engaged upon that train. We positively cannot wait here. Of course the
cow isn’t worth so much as this man asks----”
At that moment a dilapidated figure shuffled into the radiance of the
automobile lights. It was an ancient darkey, with kinky gray wool, and
he took off his ragged hat as he asked:
“Ebenin’, genmen an’ ladies. Is yo’ seed anythin’ ob my cow? She done
strayed erway ag’in, an’ I’s powerful anxious ter recover her--ya-as,
suh!”
“Another cow!” groaned Nat. “The owner of that pet deer will be around
next.”
“What kind of a cow was it?” asked Tavia, giggling.
“Jes’ a cow, Ma’am,” said the old darkey. “Jes’ a ord’nary ornery cow,
Ma’am. Ebenin’, Mars’ Judson,” he added, seeing the farmer for the
first time. “Has _you_ seed my cow?”
“Naw, I ain’t,” snapped the farmer.
Here Dorothy Dale suddenly broke into the inquiry meeting. “Did your
cow have a big white patch on her left shoulder, and is she otherwise a
red cow?” asked the girl.
“Ya-as’m. That suah is my cow.”
“Turn your light on that one against the fence, Ned,” commanded
Dorothy. “Now look, sir,” she added, to the old negro. “Is that your
cow?”
“Suah is!” declared the darkey, gladly. “Das my Sookey-cow. Law-see!
She done broke her horn. I wisht she bruk two on ’em; den she couldn’t
hook herself t’rough de parstur fence no mo’.”
“Well! what do you know about that?” demanded Tavia.
“This constable ought to have his badge taken away,” grumbled Nat.
Aunt Winnie was a most timid lady, but she was angry now. “You shall
be reported for this, sir, just as soon as I get back from the West,”
she promised the farmer. “Give the colored man five dollars, Ned. He
deserves something for showing us what this other man is.”
The old darkey was tickled enough to accept a five dollar note for the
loss of the cow’s horn. The creature was not really hurt, and everybody
was satisfied save the constable-farmer who had over-reached himself.
He dared say nothing more about arresting the automobile party, and
the two cars soon got under way again and shot off along the road to
Portersburg station.
There was no further adventure on the way. They arrived at the station
with five good minutes to spare. The town was asleep, but the agent
was in his office with the tickets for Mrs. White’s party and the
coupons for the Pullman berths.
They were to have a section to themselves, and an extra berth besides.
Dorothy was to occupy this extra berth, which proved to be an upper.
Everybody else aboard the car was asleep and the porter made up their
berths at once. “I _do_ so hate to half undress in the corridor of a
car,” grumbled Tavia. “It’s as bad as camping out.”
“But we pay good money for the privilege,” said Dorothy. “I wonder why
we are always so easy--we Americans?”
“Our fatal good nature. That’s it!” cried Tavia.
Dorothy had a hazy idea that somebody in the berth beneath her was
restless. Then she fell asleep, roused only now and then by the
stopping and starting of the train. At seven she was wide awake,
however, and as the train was still going at full speed, she crept down
from her high perch and started for the ladies’ room at the end of the
car.
But suddenly a hand was stretched out for her and the person in the
lower berth whispered:
“I say, Miss! I say!”
Dorothy turned to see a little old lady, in a close, black bonnet with
the strings untied, but otherwise fully dressed. It was plain she had
gone to bed in all her clothing the night before.
“Can a body git up, Miss?” whispered the worried old creature. “My
goodness me! I been useter gittin’ up when the fust rooster crows; this
has been the longest night I ever remember.”
“Why, you poor dear!” returned Dorothy, warmly. “Of course you can get
up. Come with me and I’ll help you tidy yourself for the day. You must
feel all mussed up.”
“I do,” admitted the old lady, feelingly.
She came after Dorothy, but the latter saw that she bore with her a
covered basket, the cover being tied close with bits of string.
“You need not be afraid of leaving your lunch basket in the berth.
Nobody will take it,” Dorothy said.
“I--I guess I’ll keep it by me,” said the old lady, with a timid smile.
Dorothy was able to make the old lady comfortable, and she found out
several things about her while the porter arranged their berths. She
was a Mrs. Petterby, and had lived all her life long (she was over
sixty) in the little mill town of Rand’s Falls, in Massachusetts.
This was the very first time the old lady had ever been ten miles from
the house where she was born. She had lived alone in her own house for
the last few years, her husband and all her children but one being dead.
“My baby, he’s out West. I’m a-going to see him,” declared Mrs.
Petterby. “He sent me money for ticket and all, long ago; he told me to
put it in the bottom of the old teapot, where I’d be sure to know where
it was, and then I could start for Colorado any time the fit tuk me.
“Did seem day b’fore yisterday, as though I’d got to see my baby again.
He was dif’rent from the other children--sort o’ wild and hard to
manage. He had a flare-up with his dad and went West.
“But there ain’t a mite o’ harm in my baby--no, Ma’am! An’ so I tell
’em. His father said so himself b’fore he died. He warn’t like the rest
o’ the children, so his father didn’t understand him.
“He’s doin’ well, he writes. Gets his forty-five dollars ev’ry month,
and sends me part. Of course, I don’t need it; I got it all in the
Rand’s Falls Bank. But I kep’ out this ticket money, like he said;
and--here I be!” and she cackled a soft little laugh, and smiled a
transfiguring smile as she thought of the surprise she was going to
give “her baby.”
She was going to Dugonne, the very town where Dorothy and her friends
were to leave the train. So the girls sort of adopted the little old
lady. But they could not find out what was in her basket.
Tavia was enormously curious. “I saw her dropping something through a
crack into the basket,” she whispered to Dorothy. “She was feeding it.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed her chum.
“You see. It’s no lunch basket. It’s something alive.”
“A dog?” suggested Dorothy.
“Maybe a cat.”
“Or a parrot?” again said Dorothy.
“Or a rabbit.”
“It couldn’t be a canary, I s’pose?” asked Dorothy.
“Or a pet goldfish?” giggled Tavia.
“How ridiculous!” returned the other girl.
Everybody went to breakfast when it was announced, save Mrs. White. She
had a “railroad headache,” and lay back in her seat with closed eyes
and an ice-pack upon her forehead. But Dorothy thought she ought to
have something to “stay her stomach.”
“You know,” she said to Tavia, “this car will be taken off and we will
not be able to get even a glass of milk for her before noon.”
Mrs. Petterby overheard this, and she blushed and whispered: “I got one
o’ them bottles that keeps things hot or cold, as you want ’em. You get
some milk off the ice, and then it will be all ready to have the egg
broke into and shaken up when your auntie wants it, by and by.”
“That’s nice of you!” cried Dorothy, and proceeded to call the waiter
and order the cold milk.
“But where’ll you get an egg--a real fresh egg, I mean?” sniffed Tavia.
“Not on a dining-car.”
“That’s so!” groaned Dorothy. “And Aunt Winnie is _so_ particular about
her eggs. She can always tell if an egg is the least bit stale.”
The old lady leaned forward again, and once more the pretty pink flush
suffused her withered cheek. She was a keen-eyed, birdlike person, and
her manner was timid like a bird’s.
“If--if you don’t mind waiting about an hour, I shouldn’t be surprised
if I--I could supply the fresh egg,” she said.
“You?” gasped Tavia, amazed.
“You know where we can buy one, you mean?” queried Dorothy.
“Oh, you won’t have to buy one,” declared Mrs. Petterby. “I’d be glad
enough to give it to you.”
“But who has fresh eggs on this train?” demanded Tavia.
“I guess nobody has them to sell, dearie,” said the little old lady,
smiling. “But in about an hour I can get one.”
“Do--do you think she’s just right, Doro?” whispered Tavia, on the sly.
Dorothy did not know. It sounded very peculiar to her. But the little
old lady seemed quite in her right mind, and she went back to the
Pullman, still clinging to her basket.
That mystery furnished the girls and Ned and Nat with subject matter
for an endless discussion. They guessed at its contents as everything
from a white rat to a jewel-box, or a root of horseradish that Nat
declared he believed she was taking with her from her garden, to
transplant on her son’s ranch. “His horses will like it, you know,”
said Nat, seriously.
“Yes,” agreed his brother, “on their oysters. Horseradish is very good
as a relish with raw oysters.”
“And of course they rake oysters right out of the streams and ponds
in Colorado,” sniffed Tavia, with a superior air. “Was anything ever
crazier?”
Dorothy went to sit beside Mrs. Petterby again. The old lady was
smiling contentedly. “I guess I’ll stay as much as a week with my
baby,” she declared to Dorothy. “I hope I won’t be homesick before the
week’s up.”
“But it will take you almost a week to get there, and a week to
return--and you intend to stay in Colorado only a week?”
“I declare, child! I don’t believe I could stand it longer. I don’t
think I could stand furrin’ parts--not at all. Rand’s Falls,
Massachusetts, is good enough for me.”
There was a movement in the basket. Dorothy was sure of it. And a sort
of crooning noise. Dorothy looked her amazement and curiosity--she
could not help it.
“There! there!” said the old lady, softly, and tapping the basket. Then
she looked aside at the girl and whispered:
“Don’t you tell that conductor. They told me that I couldn’t take her
with me unless I crated her and put her in the baggage car. But I’ll
show ’em!”
“What is it?” breathed Dorothy. “Oh! I won’t tell.”
“There! your auntie can have her fresh egg in a minute or two now. I
know Ophelia.”
“Ophelia?” gasped Dorothy.
“Yes. That’s her name. I gave it to her when she was a little bit of a
chicken.”
“A hen!” exclaimed the amazed Dorothy.
“Yes. She’s a regular pet--and not much more than a year old. She was
the only one left of a brood that my old Blackie brought off last May
was a year ago,” said Mrs. Petterby.
“I couldn’t afford to have old Blackie nussin’ just one chicken,” she
pursued, calmly. “So I brought Ophelia up by hand. She was just as
cunning as she could be.
“She sat on my shoulder when I ate breakfast, and she’d eat her share
of johnny-cake and sausages, too--yes, Ma’am! Then she’d take a nap
sometimes, in my lap, when I sot down in my rocker by the kitchen
window.
“And when she got to be a good sized pullet and I was lookin’ for her
to begin to lay pretty quick, I declare if she didn’t hop up into my
lap and lay her first egg.”
“My!” exclaimed Dorothy, in appreciative wonder.
“I left my flock in the care of my next door neighbor; but I knowed
Ophelia would be lonesome for me.
“So,” concluded the little old lady, “I’m a-takin’ her through
unbeknownst to the conductor. Don’t you tell! And now--there!”
She thrust her hand under one flap of the covered basket. There was a
little rustling sound, a seemingly objecting croak, and out came the
old lady’s hand with a white, clean and warm egg.
“I expect she’s gettin’ sort of broody,” said Mrs. Petterby, dropping
the egg into Dorothy’s hand. “She’s beginnin’ to think of settin’ an’
tryin’ to raise a famb’ly. That’s all _she_ knows about it--poor thing!
“Well, there’s your aunt’s egg, child.”