ADVENTURES IN A GREAT CITY
"Now! what _do_ you know about this?" Bess Harley demanded, with
considerable vexation.
"Of course, it's a mistake--or else that big clock's wrong," declared
Nan Sherwood.
"No fear of a railroad clock's being wrong," said her chum, grumpily.
"That old time table was wrong. _They're_ always wrong. No more sense
to a time table than there is to a syncopated song. _It_ said we were
to arrive in this station three-quarters of an hour ago--and it turns
out that it meant an entirely different station and an entirely
different train."
Nan laughed rather ruefully. "I guess it is our own fault and not the
time table's. But the fact remains that we are in the wrong place, and at
the wrong time. Walter and Grace, of course, met that other train and,
not finding us, will have gone home, not expecting us till to-morrow."
"Goodness, what a pickle!" Bess complained. "And how will we find the
Mason's house, Nan Sherwood?"
The chums had the number and street of their friends' house, but it
occurred to neither of them to go to a telephone booth and call up the
house, stating the difficulty they were in. Nor did the girls think of
asking at the information bureau, or even questioning one of the
uniformed policemen about the huge station.
"Now, of course," Nan said firmly, "some street car must go within
walking distance of Grace's house."
"Of course, but which car?" demanded Bess.
"That is the question, isn't it?" laughed Nan.
"One of these taxi-cabs could take us," suggested Bess.
"But they cost so much," objected her friend. "And we can't read those
funny clocks they have and the chauffeur could overcharge us all he
pleased. Besides," Nan added, "I don't like their looks."
"Looks of what--the taxis?"
"The chauffeurs," responded Nan, promptly.
"We-ell, we've got to go somehow--and trust to somebody," Bess said
reflectively. "I wonder should we go to that hotel where we stayed that
week with mother? They would take us in I suppose."
"But goodness! why should we be so helpless?" demanded Nan. "I'm sure two
boys would start right out and find their way to Grace's."
"Would you _dare_?" cried Bess.
"Why not? Come on! We don't want to spend all our money in taxi fares.
Let's go over there and ask that car man who seems to be bossing the
conductors and motormen."
The girls, with their handbags, started across the great square before
the station. Almost at once they found themselves in a tangle of
vehicular traffic that quite confused Bess, and even troubled the
cooler-headed Nan.
"Oh, Nan! I'm scared!" cried her chum, clinging with her free hand to
Nan's arm.
"For pity's sake, don't be foolish!" commanded Nan. "You'll get me
excited, too--Oh!"
An automobile swept past, so near the two girls that the step brushed
their garments. Bess almost swooned. Nan wished with all her heart that
they had not so recklessly left the sidewalk.
Suddenly a shrill voice cried at her elbow: "Hi, greeny! you look out,
now, or one of these horses will take a bite out o' you. My! but you're
the green goods, for fair."
Nan turned to look, expecting to find a saucy street boy; but the owner
of the voice was a girl. She was dirty-faced, undersized, poorly dressed,
and ill-nourished. But she was absolutely independent, and stood there in
the crowded square with all the assurance of a traffic policeman.
"Come on, greenies," urged this strange little mortal (she could not have
been ten years old), "and I'll beau you over the crossing myself.
Something'll happen to you if you take root here."
She carried in a basket on her arm a few tiny bunches of stale violets,
each bunch wrapped in waxed paper to keep it from the frost. Nan had seen
dozens of these little flower-sellers of both sexes on the street when
she had passed through Chicago with her Uncle Henry the winter before.
"Oh, let's go with her," cried the quite subdued Bess. "Do, Nan!"
It seemed rather odd for these two well-dressed and well-grown girls to
be convoyed by such a "hop-o'-my-thumb" as the flower-seller. But the
latter got Nan and Bess to an "isle of safety" in a hurry, and would then
have darted away into the crowd without waiting to be thanked, had not
Nan seized the handle of her basket.
"Wait!" she cried. "Don't run away."
"Hey!" said the flower-seller, "I ain't got time to stop and chin-chin. I
got these posies to sell."
"Sell us two," Nan commanded. "Wait!"
"Aw right. 'F you say so," said the small girl. "Fifteen a bunch," she
added quickly, shrewdly increasing by a nickel the regular price of the
stale boutonnières.
Nan opened her purse to pay for both. Bess said, rather timidly: "I
should think you would be afraid of getting run over every time you cross
the street--you're so little."
"Aw--say!" responded the strange girl, quite offended. "What d'ye think
I am--a _kid_? I live here, I do! I ain't country, and don't know me
way 'round."
"Meaning that we _are_, I suppose?" laughed Nan.
"Well," drawled the girl, "it sticks out all over you. I can tell 'em a
block away. An' I bet you're lost and don't know where you're goin'. You
two didn't come here to be pitcher actors, did ye?"
"Why--no!" gasped Bess.
Nan was moved to ask. "What put that idea in your head, honey?"
"I guess 'most girls that run away from home nowadays are lookin' to make
a hit in the pitchers--ain't they?"
"You ridiculous child, you!" laughed Bess. "We haven't run away."
"No? Well, I thought mebbe youse did," said the flower-seller, grinning
impishly. "I see a plenty of 'em comin' off the trains, I do."
"Runaway girls?" cried Nan,
"They don't tell me they have run away. But they are all greenies--just
as green as grass," this shrewd child of the street declared.
"Have you seen any girls lately who have come to the city to be picture
actresses?" Nan asked with sudden eagerness.
"Yep," was the reply.
"Sure?" cried Bess. "You don't mean it!"
"Yes, I do. Two girls bigger'n you. Le's see--it was last Friday."
"The second day of the big blizzard?" cried Nan.
"That's the very day," agreed Bess. "It's when Sallie and Celia would
have got here if they _were_ coming to Chicago."
"Hi!" exclaimed the flower girl. "What's you talkin' about? Who's Sallie
and Celia?"
"Girls whom we think came to the city the other day just as you said,"
Nan explained. "They have run away to be moving picture actresses."
"Hi!" exclaimed the flower-seller again. "What sort o' lookin' girls?"
"Why--I don't know exactly," confessed Nan. "Do we, Bess? Mrs. Morton
said Sallie took with her those photographs that were taken while the
girls were playing as extras in 'A Rural Beauty.'"
"That's it!" suddenly interrupted the flower-girl. "I bet I seen those
two. They didn't call each other 'Sallie' and 'Celia'; but they had some
fancy names--I forgot what."
"Oh! are you _sure_?" cried Bess.
"They had them photographs just like you say. They showed 'em to me. You
see," said the little girl, "I showed 'em where they could eat cheap, and
they told me how they was going to join a movie company."