ON THE ROAD.
The brakeman on the express-train stood at the door of the last car
looking through the glass at the scenery which constant travel had
made so familiar to him that he was hardly conscious of its wonderful
beauty, but a downward glance showed him something much less common,
and his face became expressive of great alertness as, uttering one or
two words of greater strength and force than his ordinary language
conveyed, he opened the door and let himself out upon the platform.
“Well,” he said, looking at Marion critically, “for an outside
passenger may be you’ve got the right kind of a look, but it strikes
me if you’d remembered to put on your bunnit and brushed yourself up
a little you’d have seemed more respectable. Where are you going, my
pretty maid, and where did you come from?”
“I got on at the last station,” said Marion, seeing only kindness on
his face in spite of his gruff tones. “I was too late, and I had to
jump on after you started, and I lost my hat getting over a fence
trying to catch the train.”
“Well,” said the brakeman, slowly, “stealing rides aint a healthy way
of traveling, and the company’s disposed to fight men and boys who
try it; but I don’t think they ever thought about a girl gettin’ on
a-flyin’ and ridin’ for nothin’. I suppose you’ll have to be put off
like the rest of them. Likely the rule works same way for hers as hims,
and the directions says, ‘Put him off immejiate.’”
“Please don’t put me off--please, please don’t,” said Marion. “I didn’t
want to steal a ride, but I had a reason for wanting to get on this
train, and so, though I was too late, I jumped on it after it left the
depot.”
“A very dangerous thing to do,” said the brakeman, soberly, “and it’s
more than a wonder you war’n’t killed.”
“You were not going so awfully fast,” said Marion, “but I’m sorry I’ve
broken any rules or done any thing you don’t like. I have no ticket,
but can’t I pay my way without one?”
“You can pay the conductor, but I think the first thing to be done
is to get you inside. It wouldn’t take much to blow you off this
platform.”
He opened the door and gave the girl a seat. The car was not crowded,
and, being seated so far back, only two or three passengers seemed to
notice her entrance. Among these was a tall, angular woman, who put on
an appearance of great astonishment at seeing a bare-headed passenger
brought in from nowhere. She gazed steadily at Marion for a while, and
seemed about to question her, but contented herself by shaking her head
at the ceiling and ejaculating, “Well, I never did!”
Presently, the man having gone, Marion bent over and executed some
mysterious movements which culminated in her bringing to light a crisp
new bill.
This time the lady said, “Did I ever?” addressing her exclamation, as
before, to the car-roof.
“It cannot be wrong to use it,” Marion was saying to herself. “I shall
be put off the train if I do not pay my way, and then perhaps no one
can ever find Elfie.”
Presently the conductor came through the car, looking keenly to right
and left for any new face. His eye fell upon Marion, and, looking
rather curiously at her disarranged dress, he demanded her ticket.
“I have no ticket,” said the girl, “but I have money to pay my fare, if
you will tell me how much it is.”
“Where are you going to?”
That very natural and proper question was appalling to Marion. She
hesitated a moment, thinking very fast how she should surmount the
difficulty which had unexpectedly arisen, then answered his question,
Yankee fashion, with another:
“What does it cost to go to the end of the line?”
“Three dollars to go to Troy.”
“Then please sell me a ticket for Troy,” said Marion, handing him a
five-dollar bill, and watching him anxiously while he looked at it
scrutinizingly before handing her two dollars and a little certificate
upon which he informed her she could reclaim five cents if she offered
it at a station; Marion cared very little for that just then, but
she did care for the check he gave her, with the names of all the
stopping-places printed on the back.
The car was full of people with their backs toward the door Marion had
entered, and no one had noticed her except those in the farthest back
seats. Her appearance excited some remark for a few moments, but no
one showed any special curiosity about her except the thin lady in the
seat opposite hers. She indeed watched her so closely that she could
hardly give any attention to the red wool crochet-work that occupied
her fingers. There was something that Marion at first thought rather
forbidding about her sharp black eyes, but around her mouth was a
pleasant, comfortable expression that made it seem quite natural that
she should after a while lean over toward Marion, and stretch out her
hand with a big red apple in it.
Marion took it with rather a greedy feeling, for she had missed her
dinner and was beginning to feel quite hungry.
“Mebbe you’d better set over here by me,” said the donor, pleased to
see her apple so well appreciated; “you’re a-settin’ right inter the
sun.”
“How beautifully you crochet!” said Marion, gratefully taking the
cooler seat.
“Well, I’ve done enough to do it middlin’ well.”
“What is it to be?” asked Marion, not caring much, but feeling that her
companion wanted to talk.
“It’s a Tam o’ Shanter; this is the fifteenth one I’ve made for the new
church organ.”
“What does the church organ want of them?” asked Marion, so busy
thinking she hardly knew what she said.
“You seem to be awful dumb, for your size,” said the crocheter. “The
ladies of the church have undertaken to buy an organ, an’ we’re takin’
every way to do it; we’ve had strawberry festivals an’ clam suppers,
an’ a passel-bag, an’ a guess-cake, an’ even the children had a parlor
fair and raised twenty-five dollars. I get a dollar an’ fifteen cents
for these, an’ takin’ out for the yarn I buy at wholesale they give a
profit of one dollar each for the organ.”
As she talked she was opening a traveling-bag from which she took a
finished cap, a dark blue one, and held it out for Marion’s admiration.
“This,” she continued, “is one Cousin Sarah Bly, in Albany, ordered for
one of her girls, and I’m going there on a visit.”
A sudden thought struck Marion.
“O, wouldn’t you sell that one to me? Perhaps your cousin would wait
till you could make another, and I do need something to cover my head.”
The woman looked at her thoughtfully.
“I made sure when I set eyes on you that you’d run away,” she said,
“for no young girl’s mother’d let her go travelin’ without a hat or
bunnit. But you don’t seem a wild sort, an’ mebbe you had a good reason
for makin’ off; you may hev been a bound girl for all I know. However,
I don’t know’s I’ve any objection to lettin’ you have the Tam. It’ll be
that much extra for the organ.”
So the purchase was made, and Marion looked much less conspicuous with
her head covered.
“I lost my hat as I ran,” explained Marion, “and the bushes caught my
dress and tore all these places.”
“I’ve got a ‘huzif’ with needles and thread,” said the woman, “and you
might sew up the worst of the tears. There’s pieces gone out of some
of ’em, but you can cobble them up into some kind of shape an’ help
yourself to look more like decent traveling folks. I don’t hold to
finery on the road, but I hate rags either abroad or to home.”
Marion thanked her joyfully, but while she busied herself with the
rents she pondered on the strangeness of hearing from some one else the
infelicities of speech that she was beginning to be quite emancipated
from herself; for no one meeting her now would believe that she had
only lately expressed herself in a more uncouth dialect than her
fellow-passenger used. Then, as the train slowed up at a station, she
became wildly anxious for fear the party she was pursuing might leave
the cars unnoticed by her.
She felt that it would be very imprudent for her to let herself be seen
by Elfie, so she went to the steps at the back of the car and eagerly
scanned the people who were getting off. Then, as she came back to her
seat, it again occurred to her that she could not even be certain that
Elfie was on the train, and this journey of hers might be a foolish
exploit which she could hardly explain satisfactorily to Mrs. Abbott.
“You’ve got somethin’ on your mind,” said the thin, crocheting lady, as
Marion resumed her seat, “an’ ef I was you, ef it was any wrong-doin’,
I’d think twice fore I kept on with it.”
There was something honest and persuasive in her tones, and Marion felt
that she was a friend; so, obeying a sudden impulse, she exclaimed,
after a searching look into the bright eyes that were looking rather
deploringly at her,
“O, I do wish you would help me!”