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 ponyback, 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 were 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.