ON THE TRAIN
“Don’t you mind what that mean thing says,” whispered Pearl Harrod,
quickly.
She had seen Ruth flush hotly and the tears spring to Agnes’ eyes when
Trix Severn had spoken so ill-naturedly. The younger Corner House
girls did not hear, but Ruth and Agnes were hurt to the quick.
“You are very, very kind, Pearl,” said Ruth. “But we had thought of
going to the tent colony——”
“Didn’t Trix Severn ask you to her place?” demanded Pearl, hotly. “I
_know_ she did. And now she insults you. If she hadn’t asked you
first, and seemed so thick with your sister, Ruth, I would have
insisted long ago that you all come to uncle’s bungalow. There’s
plenty of room, for my aunt and the girls won’t be down for a
fortnight.”
“But, Pearl——”
“I’ll be mad if you don’t agree—now I know that Trix has released
you, Ruth Kenway,” cried the good-hearted girl. “Now, don’t let’s say
another word about it.”
“Oh, don’t be angry!” begged Ruth. “But won’t it look as though we
_were_ begging our way—as Trix says?”
“Pooh! who cares for Trix Severn?”
“You—you are very kind,” said Ruth, yielding at length.
“Then you come on. Hey, girls!” she shouted, running after her own
particular friends who were climbing aboard the rear car. “I’ve gotten
them to promise. The Corner House girls are going with us—for two
weeks, anyway.”
At once the other girls addressed cheered and gathered the four
Kenways into their group, with great rejoicing. The sting of Trix
Severn’s unkindness was forgotten.
Mr. Howbridge, their guardian, came to the station to see them off,
and shook hands with Ruth through the window of the car. When the
train actually moved away, Neale O’Neil was there in the crowd,
swinging his cap and wishing them heaps of fun. Neale expected to go
to Pleasant Cove himself, later in the season.
This last car of the special train was a day coach; but the
light-hearted girls did not mind the lack of conveniences and comforts
to be obtained in the chair cars. The train was supposed to arrive at
Pleasant Cove by three o’clock, and a five hour ride on a hot June day
was only “fun” for the Corner House girls and their friends.
Ruth first of all got the brakeman to turn over a seat so that she and
her three sisters could sit facing each other. Mrs. MacCall had put
them up a nice hamper of luncheon and the older girl knew this would
be better enjoyed if the seats were thus arranged.
Of course, there was the usual desire of some of the travelers to have
windows open while others wished them closed. Cinders and dust flew in
by the peck if the former arrangement prevailed, while the heat was
intense if the sashes were down.
Tess and Dot were little disturbed by these physical ills. But they
had their own worries. Dot, who had insisted on carrying the
Alice-doll in her arms, was troubled mightily to remember whether she
had packed the whole of the doll’s trousseau (this was supposed to be
a wedding journey for the Alice-doll—a wedding journey in which the
bridegroom had no part); while Tess wondered what would happen to Tom
Jonah and Sandyface’s young family while they were all gone from the
old Corner House.
“I feel condemned—I do, indeed, Dot,” sighed Tess. “We ought, at
least, to have named those four kittens before we left. They’ll be
awfully old before the christening—if we don’t come back at the end
of our first two weeks.”
“What could happen to them?” demanded Dot.
“Why—croup—or measles—or chicken-pox. They’re only babies, you
know. And if one should die,” added Tess, warmly, “we wouldn’t even
know what name to put on its gravestone!”
“My! lots of things can happen in two weeks, I s’pose,” agreed Dot.
“Do you think we ought to stay away from home so long?”
“I guess we’ll have to if Ruth and Aggie stay,” said Tess. “But I
shall worry.”
Meanwhile Agnes, who sat with her back to the engine beside Ruth, had
become interested in a couple sitting together not far down the car.
They were strangers—and strangely dressed, as well.
“Oh, Ruth!” Agnes exclaimed, under her breath, “they look like
Gypsies.”
“If they are, they are much better dressed than any Gypsies we ever
saw before,” observed her sister.
“But how gay!”
This comment was just enough. The older one had shocking taste in
millinery. She wore, too, long, pendant ear-rings and her fingers were
covered with gaudy looking jewels. Her garments were rich in texture,
but oddly made, and the contrasts in color were, as Agnes whispered,
“fierce!”
“That girl with her is handsome, just the same,” Ruth declared.
“Oh! isn’t she!” whispered the enthusiastic Agnes. “A perfectly
stunning brunette.”
If she were a Gypsy girl she was a very beautiful one. Her features
were lovely and her complexion brilliant. When she smiled she flashed
two rows of perfect teeth upon the beholder. She might have been a
year or two older than Ruth.
“I don’t know—somehow—she reminds me of somebody,” murmured the
latter.
“Who?”
“The girl.”
“She reminds me of that chicken-thief Tom Jonah treed on the henhouse
roof,” chuckled Agnes.
“Oh!” exclaimed Ruth; “all Gypsies can’t be alike.”
“Humph! you never heard a good word said for them,” sniffed Agnes.
“But that doesn’t prove there are not good ones. They are a wandering
people and have no particular trade or standing in any community.
Naturally they have a lot of crimes laid upon their shoulders that
they never commit,” said the just Ruth.
“That was one of them that tried to steal your hens, just the same,”
said Agnes.
“I suppose so,” admitted her sister. “But surely _these_ two cannot
belong to the same kind of Gypsies. See how richly they are dressed.”
“I guess that doesn’t make any difference,” said Agnes. “They are all
cut off the same piece of goods,” and immediately she lost interest in
the strange couple when Lucy Poole came up the aisle to speak to her.
Ruth had the gaily dressed woman and her companion on her mind a good
deal. She often looked at them when they did not notice her. The woman
must have been forty, but was straight, lithe, and of good figure. She
sat on the outer end of the seat, having the girl between her and the
window.
The latter seemed more and more familiar in appearance to Ruth as she
looked, yet the Corner House girl could not say whom the girl looked
like.
The latter scarcely spoke to her companion. Indeed, she kept her face
toward the window for the most part, and seemed to be in a sullen
mood. She had smiled once at Dot and the Alice-doll, and that was the
only time Ruth had seen the dark, beautiful face with an attractive
expression upon it.
The woman seemed talkative enough, but what language she jabbered to
her companion the Corner House girl could not tell. She frequently
leaned toward the dark girl, her bejeweled fingers seizing the sleeve
of her waist, and her speech was both emphatic and loud.
The rattle of the train drowned, however, most of the woman’s words.
Ruth arose and went the length of the car for a drink, just for the
purpose of overhearing the strange speech of the Gypsy (if such the
woman was) for she was sure the language was not English.
She heard nothing intelligible. Ruth folded a cup, filled it at the
ice-water tank, and brought it back for the children. Pearl Harrod was
sitting directly behind the two strangers, in a seat with Carrie
Poole.
“Oh, I say, Ruth!” Pearl said, “is it a fact that Rosa Wildwood is
coming down to the Cove next week?”
Ruth turned to answer. As she did so the girl in the seat with the
Gypsy sprang to her feet, her face transfigured with amazement, or
alarm—Ruth did not know which. The woman grabbed her by the elbow and
pulled her back into the seat, saying something of a threatening
nature to her companion.
In her excitement the woman knocked the cup of water from Ruth’s hand.
She turned to apologize, and Ruth, looking over her head, saw the
dark-skinned girl sitting back in her corner quite colorless and
broken. The Corner House girl was sure, too, that the strange girl’s
lips formed the name “Rosa Wildwood”—but she made no sound.
“It is all right,” Ruth assured the Gypsy woman. “No harm done.”
“I am the ver’ awkward one—eh?” repeated the woman, with a hard
smile.
“It does not matter,” said Ruth. “I can get another cup of water.”
She returned to do so. All the while she was wondering what the
incident meant. It was not merely a chance happening, she was sure.
Something about the name of her schoolmate, Rosa Wildwood, had
frightened the beautiful girl who was evidently in the Gypsy woman’s
care.
Ruth grew quite excited as she drew another cup of water, and she
swiftly planned to discover the mystery, as she started up the aisle
of the coach a second time.