|In the train they found a seat together, and when the locomotive
shrieked and they dashed off through deep cuts and over high trestles,
Mrs. Gibbs was unable to control her excitement. He saw that she was
holding tightly to the arm of the seat.
“I have never been on sech a fast one before,” she said, tremulously.
“She don’t whiz nigh like some I’ve rid on out West,” replied Joel, with
an air of conscious importance, even guardianship.
A few minutes later she grew calmer. Happening to catch her eye, he saw
that her mind was far away.
“I was jest a-thinkin’ how awful it is to be leavin’ Susie’s grave so
fur behind,” she said. “I’m goin’ to Amos, but my other child is back
thar.”
“I was thinkin’ about Rachel’s grave jest a minute ago,” he returned.
“You called ’er to my mind jest now. Somehow you have the same sort of a
look about the eyes.”
“Shucks! that ain’t so, I know!”
“It’s true as I live!”
“Well, she was a good woman.”
“The best I ever run across, an’ knowed rail well.”
The sun, seen first on one side of the car and then on the other, went
down. The train porter laid a plank across the ends of the seats and
climbed up on it and lighted the lamps overhead. This made the space
outside look like a black curtain softly flapping against the car. The
widow opened her carpet-bag and took out something wrapped in a napkin.
“Betsey said you loved fried chicken an’ biscuits,” she said.
“It’s my favorite dish,” he replied, stiltedly, readily cloaking himself
in his best table manners.
“I’m dyin’ fer a cup o’ coffee,” she said. “This dry food will clog in
my throat without some ‘n’ to wash it down. I put in a package o’ ground
coffee an’ my littlest coffee-pot, thinkin’ thar might be some way to
boil water, but I don’t see no chance. You say we don’t stop long enough
to git supper?”
“That’s what the conductor said.”
But at the next station, where they stopped for only a minute, he
took the coffee-pot and hurried out. The train started on, and she was
greatly alarmed, thinking that he was left, but he had entered the rear
door and now approached with the coffee-pot steaming at the spout.
“Now, ef you’ve jest got a cup about you we ’ll be all hunkydory,” he
laughed.
Her face lighted up with combined pleasure and relief. “Well, I
certainly ‘lowed you was left back thar,” she laughed. “An’ how on earth
did you git the coffee?”
“They sell it by the quart on the platform,” he replied. “I drapped
onto that trick once when I was on my way to Californy.”
She got out a tin cup and filled it with the coffee. “I never was so
downright grateful fer a thing in my life,” she remarked. “Now, help
yorese’f, an’ I ’ll sip some along with my chicken an’ bread.”
“I won’t tech it tell you’ve had all you feel like takin’,” said he,
gallantly.
The coffee and the lunch seemed to stimulate them both, for they sat and
chatted and laughed together till past eleven o’clock. Then he noticed
that she was growing sleepy, so he took the vacant seat behind her.
“It ’ll give you more room,” he said.
By and by he saw her head fall forward. She was asleep. He rolled up his
overcoat in the shape of a pillow and placed it on the end of the seat,
and touching her gently, he told her to lie down and rest her head on
the coat. She obeyed, with a drowsy smile of gratitude. He watched her
all through the night. She slept soundly, like a tired child.
“I never seed a body look so much like Rachel in all my life,” he said
several times to himself. “Pore woman! I’m that glad I come with ‘er!
She’s had ’er grief, an’ I’ve had mine.”
The stopping of the train a little after the break of day roused her.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. He did not wait to speak to her, but
taking the coffee-pot, he ran out at the door behind her, so that her
first glimpse of him was when he appeared before her with more hot
coffee.
“You must take a cup to start you out fer the day,” he smiled.
“You do beat the world, Joel!” she laughed. “I couldn’t ‘a’ done without
you.”
She made room for him beside her, and they ate breakfast together. The
rest of the journey they sat watching the changing landscape, remarking
upon the different methods of tilling the soil, and talking of home and
their neighbors.
“It’s strange how people can live as nigh to one another as me an’ you
have an’ not git better acquainted,” he said. “I declare, you ain’t a
bit like I thought you was.”
“I never railly knowed you, nuther, Joel,” she laughed. “You was always
sech a busy, say-nothin’ sort of a man.”
“An’ right now you are off to stay a long time, and I ’ll have to go back
to the backwoods. I wonder ef--”
He went no farther, and she did not help him out. She had suddenly grown
reticent, and seemed occupied with the landscape, which was rushing
southward like a swollen stream of level farming lands, in which floated
houses, fences, twisting trees, and waltzing men and horses.
“I reckon you ’ll stay up thar all the spring an’ summer,” he said at
last.
“I wouldn’t like to leave Amos right away,” she made answer. “You see, I
hain’t seed the boy fer a long time, an’ I hain’t thought o’ nothin’ but
him fer many a day.”