"Seems to me that you are nudging a fellow for his ticket every five
minutes," said a lantern-jawed looking individual to the railroad
conductor, as he roused himself from his nap, and pulled a bit of red
pasteboard from his hat-band. "I feel as if my gastronomic region had
been scooped out, and rubbed dry with a crash-towel; how long before we
stop, hey?"
"Buy some books, sir?" said a young itinerant bookseller to our hungry
traveler.
"Have you the 'True guide for travelers to preserve their temper?'" said
our friend to the urchin.
The boy looked anxiously over the titles of his little library, and
replied, with a shake of the head, "No, sir, I never heard of it."
"Nor I either," responded the hungry growler; "so get about your
business; the best book that was ever written can neither be ate nor
drank; I'd give a whole library for a glass of brandy and water this
minute," and the unhappy man folded his arms over his waistband, and
doubled himself up like a hedgehog in the corner.
"I am always sure to get a seat on the sunny side of the cars, and next
to an Irish woman," muttered a young lady. "I wonder do the Irish never
feed on any thing but rum and onions?"
"Very uncomfortable, these seats," muttered a gentleman who had tried
all sorts of positions to accommodate his vertebræ; "the corporation
really should attend to it. I will write an article about it in my
paper, as soon as I reach home. I will annihilate the whole concern;
they ought to remember that editors occasionally travel, and remember
which side their bread is buttered. Shade of Franklin! how my bones
ache; they shall hear of this in 'The Weekly Scimeter.' It is a
downright imposition."
In fact, every body was cross; every body was hungry and begrimed with
dust; every body was ready to explode at the next feather's weight of
annoyance.
Not every body; there was one dear little girl who found sunshine even
there, and ran about extracting honey from what to others were only
bitter herbs. Holding on by the seats, she passed up and down the narrow
avenue between the benches, peeping with the brightest smile in the
world into the faces of the cross passengers, drinking from the little
tin-cup at the water-tank, clapping her hands at the sound of the
whistle, and touching the sleeve even of the hedgehog gentleman rolled
up in the corner. The child's mother sat on the back seat, looking after
her as kindly as she was able; but, poor thing, traveling made her
sick, and she held her camphor-bottle to her nostrils, and leaned
gasping against the window-sill to catch every stray breath of air.
What's that?
Crash goes the window-glass; clouds of scalding steam pour into the
cars, which seem to be vibrating in mid-air; benches, baskets, bags, and
passengers are all jumbled pell-mell together; every face is blanched
with terror.
"Oh, it's nothing, only the cars run off the track--only the engine
smashed, and baggage-car a wreck--only the passengers' trunks
disemboweled in a muddy brook--only the engineer scalded, and the
passengers turned out into a wet meadow in a pelting shower of rain;
that's all. Not a son of Adam was to blame for it--of course not,"
growls the exasperated editor. "Thank Heaven the Superintendent of the
road and the Directors were in the forward car and got the first baptism
in that muddy brook."
"Zounds!" he exclaimed, pinning up his torn coat-flap, and punching out
the crown of his hat; "they shall hear of this in 'The Weekly Scimeter.'
Railroad companies should remember that editors sometimes travel."
"May! my little May!" gasped the poor sick woman, recovering herself,
and looking about for her child; "where's May?"
Ah, where's May? Folded in His arms who carries the little lambs so
safely in his bosom--gone with the smile yet bright on her lip.
Blithe little May!
They take the little lifeless form and bear it across the fields to the
nearest farm-house, and the mother falls senseless, with her face to the
damp grass--the last tie of her widowed heart broken.
"Sad accident, ma'am--hope you are not hurt," said the bustling village
doctor to a lady who held her handkerchief over her mouth. "Deplorable!"
exclaimed the delighted doctor. "My engagements are very pressing in the
village--five cases of typhoid fever, two of chicken-pox--hurried up
here in the face of promise to a lady, wife of one of our richest men,
not to be gone over half an hour, in _case_ she should want me. Ladies
can't always tell _exactly_, you know, ma'am.
"Jaw-bone fractured? I'm somewhat in a hurry. Senator Scott's wife, too,
was very unwilling I should leave my office--;" and the doctor drew out
a Lepine watch, as if his moments were so much gold-dust--as if he had
not sat in his leathern chair, week in and week out, watching the
spiders catch flies, and wishing he were a spider, and the flies were
his patients.
"Jaw-bone broke, ma'am?" he asked, again.
"She is not hurt at all, I tell you," growled Mr. Howe, shaking the rain
from his hat, as he stood knee-deep in the tall meadow-grass. "She lost
her set of false teeth in the collision, and if you jabber at her till
the last day you won't catch her to open her mouth till she gets another
set."
"_Mr._ Howe," said that gentleman's wife, in a muffled voice from behind
the handkerchief, "how _can_ you?"
"How can I? I can do any thing, Mrs. Howe. Are not our trunks all
emptied into that cursed brook? All that French trumpery spoiled for
which you have been draining my pocket all the spring to go to Saratoga.
Did I want to come on this journey? Don't I hate journeying? Haven't I
been obliged to go a whole day at a time with next to nothing on my
stomach? Haven't I been poked in the ribs every fifteen minutes for the
conductor to amuse himself by snipping off the ends of my railroad
tickets? Don't my head feel as if Dodworth's brass band were playing
Yankee Doodle inside of it? Refreshments! Yes--what are the
refreshments? A rush round a semicircular counter by all sorts of
barbarians--bowls of oysters, scalding hot, and ten minutes to swallow
them--tea without milk--coffee without sugar--bread without butter, and
unmitigated egg--no pepper--no salt--no nothing, and, seventy-five cents
to pay; the whole thing is an outrageous humbug; and now here's this
collision, and your false teeth gone, not to mention other things."
Another muffled groan from behind the handkerchief.
"I'll have damages, heavy damages--let me see, there is the teeth,
$200."
"Good heaven's, Mr. Howe," shrieked his wife--"you don't mean to mention
_them_ to the corporation?"
"But I do, though," said John, "you never will be easy till you get
another set, and I mean they shall find 'em."
Another groan from behind the handkerchief.
"Passengers, please go through the meadow, and the cow-yard, yonder, and
cross the stile to get into the cars beyond," shouted the brakeman.
Down jumped the ladies from their perches on the fences where they had
been roosting, like draggled hens in the rain, for the last half hour,
and all made a rush for the cow-yard.
"There now, Mrs. Howe--do you hear that? A pretty tramp through that
high grass for your skirts and thin gaiter-boots. This is what tourists
call the delights of traveling, I suppose--humph."
"We shan't get to ---- till the middle of the night, I suppose--_i. e._,
provided the conductor concludes not to have another smash-up. There
will be no refreshments, of course, to be had, that are good for any
thing, at that time o' night; waiters sleepy and surly, and I as hungry
as a bear who has had nothing but his claws to eat all winter. Pleasant
prospect that. You needn't hold up your skirts Mrs. Howe; there's no
dodging that tall grass. Trip to Saratoga! Mr. John Howe and
lady--ha--ha! Catch me in such a trap again, Mrs. Howe."
Precisely at two o'clock in the morning, our hungry and jaded travelers
arrived at ----. A warm cup of tea and some cold chicken, somewhat
mollified our hero, and he was just subsiding into that Christian frame
of mind common to his sex when their hunger is appeased, when happening
to remark to the waiter who stood beside him, that he was glad to find
so good a supper so late at night--that worthy unfortunately replied:
"Oh--yes! massa! de cars keep running off de track so often dat we have
to keep de food ready all de time, 'cause dere's no knowing, you see,
when de travelers will come; and dey is always powerful hungry."
"Do you hear that?" said Mr. Howe to his wife, who was munching, as well
as she was able, behind her handkerchief; "and we have got to go back
the same road. You may not want that other set of teeth, after all, my
dear."
"Sh--sh--sh--" said that lady, treading not very gently on his corns
under the table--"are you mad, Mr. Howe?"
"Yes," muttered her husband--"stark, staring mad, I have been mad all
day--mad ever since I started on this journey; and I shall continue mad
till I get back to St. John's Square and my old arm-chair and
slippers;" and long after the light was extinguished, Mr. Howe was
muttering in his sleep, "I'll have damages--let me see, there's $200 for
the teeth."
From that journey Mr. Howe dated his final and triumphant Declaration of
Domestic Independence. The spell of Mrs. Howe's cabalistic whisper was
broken. Mr. Howe had a counter-spell. Mrs. Howe's day was over. Mr. Howe
could smoke up stairs and down stairs, and in my lady's chamber; he
could brush his coat in the best parlor; put his booted feet on the
sofa, and read his political newspaper as long as he pleased. The word
"damages," arrested Mrs. Howe in her wildest flights, and brought her to
his feet, like a shot pigeon.