On the morning of her disappearance, Betsey rose even before the pewee
and the English sparrow, and dressed herself quietly, though with
trembling hands, and stole out of the kitchen door like a plunderless
thief. The old dog licked her hand and looked at her anxiously; the
tortoise-shell cat rubbed against her best gown, and trotted away up the
yard, then she turned anxiously and came after the old woman, following
faithfully until she had to be driven back. Betsey was used to long
country excursions afoot. She dearly loved the early morning; and
finding that there was no dew to trouble her, she began to follow
pasture paths and short cuts across the fields, surprising here and
there a flock of sleepy sheep, or a startled calf that rustled out from
the bushes. The birds were pecking their breakfast from bush and turf;
and hardly any of the wild inhabitants of that rural world were enough
alarmed by her presence to do more than flutter away if they chanced to
be in her path. She stepped along, light-footed and eager as a girl,
dressed in her neat old straw bonnet and black gown, and carrying a few
belongings in her best bundle-handkerchief, one that her only brother
had brought home from the East Indies fifty years before. There was an
old crow perched as sentinel on a small, dead pine-tree, where he could
warn friends who were pulling up the sprouted corn in a field close by;
but he only gave a contemptuous caw as the adventurer appeared, and she
shook her bundle at him in revenge, and laughed to see him so clumsy as
he tried to keep his footing on the twigs.
“Yes, I be,” she assured him. “I’m a-goin’ to Pheladelphy, to the
Centennial, same’s other folks. I’d jest as soon tell ye’s not, old
crow;” and Betsey laughed aloud in pleased content with herself and her
daring, as she walked along. She had only two miles to go to the station
at South Byfleet, and she felt for the money now and then, and found it
safe enough. She took great pride in the success of her escape, and
especially in the long concealment of her wealth. Not a night had passed
since Mrs. Strafford’s visit that she had not slept with the roll of
money under her pillow by night, and buttoned safe inside her dress by
day. She knew that everybody would offer advice and even commands about
the spending or saving of it; and she brooked no interference.
The last mile of the foot-path to South Byfleet was along the railway
track; and Betsey began to feel in haste, though it was still nearly two
hours to train time. She looked anxiously forward and back along the
rails every few minutes, for fear of being run over; and at last she
caught sight of an engine that was apparently coming toward her, and
took flight into the woods before she could gather courage to follow the
path again. The freight train proved to be at a standstill, waiting at a
turnout; and some of the men were straying about, eating their early
breakfast comfortably in this time of leisure. As the old woman came up
to them, she stopped too, for a moment of rest and conversation.
“Where be ye goin’?” she asked pleasantly; and they told her. It was to
the town where she had to change cars and take the great through train;
a point of geography which she had learned from evening talks between
the men at the farm.
“What’ll ye carry me there for?”
“We don’t run no passenger cars,” said one of the young fellows,
laughing. “What makes you in such a hurry?”
“I’m startin’ for Pheladelphy, an’ it’s a gre’t ways to go.”
“So ’tis; but you’re consid’able early, if you’re makin’ for the
eight-forty train. See here! you haven’t got a needle an’ thread ’long
of you in that bundle, have you? If you’ll sew me on a couple o’
buttons, I’ll give ye a free ride. I’m in a sight o’ distress, an’ none
o’ the fellows is provided with as much as a bent pin.”
“You poor boy! I’ll have you seen to, in half a minute. I’m troubled
with a stiff arm, but I’ll do the best I can.”
The obliging Betsey seated herself stiffly on the slope of the
embankment, and found her thread and needle with utmost haste. Two of
the train-men stood by and watched the careful stitches, and even
offered her a place as spare brakeman, so that they might keep her near;
and Betsey took the offer with considerable seriousness, only thinking
it necessary to assure them that she was getting most too old to be out
in all weathers. An express went by like an earthquake, and she was
presently hoisted on board an empty box-car by two of her new and
flattering acquaintances, and found herself before noon at the end of
the first stage of her journey, without having spent a cent, and
furnished with any amount of thrifty advice. One of the young men, being
compassionate of her unprotected state as a traveler, advised her to
find out the widow of an uncle of his in Philadelphia, saying
despairingly that he couldn’t tell her just how to find the house; but
Miss Betsey Lane said that she had an English tongue in her head, and
should be sure to find whatever she was looking for. This unexpected
incident of the freight train was the reason why everybody about the
South Byfleet station insisted that no such person had taken passage by
the regular train that same morning, and why there were those who
persuaded themselves that Miss Betsey Lane was probably lying at the
bottom of the poor-farm pond.