OFF FOR THE MOUNTAINS.
On the train at last and headed for the mountains!
That month of preparation had been about the busiest in the lives of the
Carter girls. Douglas had graduated at school and taken her examinations
for college, besides being the head and guiding star of the family. Her
father's burden seemed to have fallen on her young shoulders; everything
was brought to her to decide. Helen was fully capable of taking the
initiative but her extravagant tendencies were constantly cropping up,
and Douglas was afraid to give her free rein for fear she would overturn
them in a ditch of debt.
The letter from their mother had been unfortunate in a measure since it
had but strengthened Helen's ideas on what was suitable in the way of
clothes. She wanted to plunge into the extravagance of outing suits and
pig-skin shoes and all kinds of extremely attractive camping get-ups
advertised in New York papers. Douglas was firm, however, and Helen was
forced to content herself with a love of a corduroy skirt, cold gravy in
color, with sport pockets and smoked pearl buttons. Lucy had pouted a
whole day because she could not have one, too, just like it.
Nan was a great comfort to Douglas as she was fully sensible of the
importance of their not charging anything, no matter how small, so that
when their father did recover he would not have debts awaiting him. The
only trouble about Nan was she was so often in a dream, and her memory
was not to be depended upon. With all the good intentions in the world
she would forget to deliver a most important message, or would promise
and mean to attend to something and then lose herself in a book of
poetry and forget it absolutely.
Lucy was gay and bright and very useful when it came to running errands.
Her only trouble was the constant sparring with Helen, whom she secretly
admired more than any one in the world.
Master Bobby had spent a blissful month of "shoving" for Dr. Wright. Dr.
Wright had a theory that all children were naturally good and that when
they were seemingly naughty it was only because they were not
sufficiently occupied.
"Give the smallest child some real responsibility and he is sure to be
worthy of it. If their brains and hands and feet are busy with something
that they feel is worth while, children are sure to be happy." Bobby had
sat in his car a half hour at a time, while the doctor was busy with
patients, perfectly happy and good, contenting himself with playing
chauffeur. He would occasionally toot the horn just to let the passer-by
understand that he was on the job.
The beloved home had been put in apple pie order and handed over to the
poor, rich fugitives from the war zone. The kind old cook had bidden
them a tearful farewell and betaken herself to her new place after
careful admonishings of her pupil, Helen, not to let nobody 'suade her
that any new fangled yeast is so good as tater yeast.
The real fun in the venture was buying the provisions and necessary
camping outfits. That was money that must be spent and they could do it
with a clear conscience. The lists were written and rewritten and
revised a score of times until they could not think of a single thing
that had been left out. The freight was sent off several days ahead of
them to give poor Cousin Lizzie's bed time to get there before them.
Poor Cousin Lizzie, indeed! She was brave about the undertaking up to
the time of starting, but when she was handed into the common coach,
there being no parlor car on that morning train, she almost gave up.
Nothing but the memory of old Cousin Robert Carter's kindness to her
mother sustained her.
"A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children," she
muttered as she sank on the dusty, dingy cushions of the very common,
common day coach. "That is surely what old Cousin Robert Carter did. I
have not ridden in such a coach for more than thirty years, I am sure.
Why was this train chosen? There must be good trains running to the
mountains that have chair cars."
"Yes, Cousin Lizzie," said Douglas, "but you see Greendale is a very
small station and only the very accommodating accommodations stop there.
The trains with chair cars stop only at the big places."
Douglas was very tired and looked it. She was very pale and her firm
mouth would tremble a little in spite of her self-control. No one seemed
to notice it, as every one was tired and every one had been busy. She
felt when they were once off that she could rest, if only Cousin Lizzie
would not complain too much and if Helen and Lucy would not squabble and
if dear little Bobby would not poke his head too far out of the window.
Dr. Wright came down to see them off and as he shook hands with Douglas,
he looked very searchingly at her tired face.
"You must be selfish when you get to the mountains and rest for a week,"
he said. "You are about all in."
"Oh, I'll be all right in a few minutes. It is just getting started
that has tired me. Bobby, please don't poke your head out,--your arm,
either. Don't you know something might come along and chop you right in
two?"
"I'm a shover for this here train. If I don't stick my arm way out the
train a-runnin' up behind us will c'lision with us."
"See here, young man, you are still in my employ and I don't intend to
have you working for the C. & O. while you are working for me. When my
chauffeur travels to the mountains, he has to keep his hands inside the
windows and his head, too. He must be kind to his sisters, especially
his Sister Douglas, who is very tired. I am really letting you off duty
so you can take care of Douglas. You see, when a lot of women start on a
trip they have to have some man with them to look after them."
"That's so, boss, an' I'm goin' to be that man. Women folks is meant to
look after eatin's an' to sew up holes an' things. I'm hungry right
now!" exclaimed Bobby, man-like, finding some work immediately for the
down-trodden sex.
"All aboard!" called the brakeman.
Dr. Wright was bidding hasty adieux when it was discovered that Nan had
left the carefully prepared lunch basket in the waiting-room. Poor Nan!
She had been occupied trying to remember some lines of Alfred Noyes
about a railroad station and had carelessly placed the basket on the
seat beside her, and then, in the excitement of getting Oscar and Susan
into the colored coach and picking up all the many little parcels and
shawls and small pillows that Cousin Lizzie always traveled with, she
had forgotten it.
"Oh, let me get off and get it," she implored, but Dr. Wright gently
pushed her back into her seat and hastily whispered something to her
that made her smile instead of cry, which she was on the verge of doing.
She sat quite quietly while the engine puffed its way out of the shed
and Dr. Wright jumped off the moving train.
She waved to him and he gave her a reassuring smile.
"He is like the hills," she thought. "'I will look unto the hills from
whence cometh my help.'"
"Nan, how could you?" started Helen, and Lucy chimed in with:
"Yes, how could you?"
"I am so sorry, but maybe it will come all right, anyhow."
"Come all right, anyhow!" sniffed Cousin Lizzie. "It is all right now as
far as I am concerned. I certainly could not taste a mouthful in such
surroundings as these."
Douglas put her tired head on the dingy, dusty red plush upholstery and
closed her eyes. Food made no difference to her. All she wanted was
rest. Bobby opened the package of chewing gum that his employer had
slipped him as advance wages, and forgot all about the hunger that he
had declared a moment before.
"I ain't a keering, Nan, 'bout no lunch. I am goin' to buy all the
choclid an' peanuts what the man brings in the train an' old lunch ain't
no good nohow."
Nan kept on smiling an enigmatic smile that mystified Helen and Lucy.
They were accustomed to Nan's forgetting things but she was usually so
contrite and miserable. Now she just smiled and peeped out the window.
"I don't believe she gives a hang," whispered Lucy to Helen.
"Looks that way. If she had spent hours making the sandwiches, as I did,
maybe she would not be so calm about it."
"I made some of them, too."
"Oh, yes, so you did,--about three, I should say."
"Lots more. You're all the time thinking you make all the sandwiches."
Douglas opened her tired eyes at the sharp tone of voice that Lucy had
fallen into.
"Girls, please don't squabble."
"All right, we won't! You go to sleep, honey, and I'll keep Bobby from
falling out the window and agree with Lucy about everything even if she
insists that Dr. Wright is an Adonis. Come here, Bobby. Helen is going
to make up a really true story to tell you," and Helen lifted her
little brother from the seat by Douglas. In a few moments he was so
absorbed in the wonderful true story about bears and whales that a
little boy named Bobby had shot and caught, he did not notice that the
train had stopped at the first station after leaving Richmond.
Some excitement on the platform made them all look out the window. The
conductor had waved to the engineer his signal for starting when a car
came dashing madly up to the station. Frantic pulling of ropes by the
accommodating conductor on the accommodating accommodation! A belated
traveler, no doubt!
"It's my 'ployer!" screamed Bobby. "Look at him park his car! Ain't he
some driver, though?"
It was Dr. Wright, breaking laws as to speed, presuming on the Red Cross
tag that the doctors attach to their cars. Several policemen had noted
him as he sped through the suburbs, but felt surely it was a matter of
life and death when they saw the Red Cross tag, and let him go
unmolested and unfined.
"Here it is, Miss Nan!" he called as he waved the heavy basket,
endangering the precious sandwiches. Eager hands drew the basket through
an open window while a grinning brakeman and a rather irate conductor
got the train started once more.
"Here's some aromatic ammonia! Make Miss Douglas take a teaspoonful in a
glass of water," he said to Helen as he handed a small vial to her over
Bobby's head. "It almost made me miss the train, but she must have it."
"Oh, Dr. Wright, I am so much obliged to you. You are very kind to us."
"Helen's been making up a wonderfulest true story for me," called Bobby,
leaning out dangerously far to see the last of his 'ployer. "So I'm
being good an' not worrying Douglas."
There was unalloyed approval now in the blue, blue eyes, and Helen
thought, as the young doctor gave one of his rare smiles, that he was
really almost handsome.