Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/15

Rh pass, and to take in fuel. The lights are set burning, people gather back again into their seats and make themselves comfortable after their own fashion. Men have suddenly grown shorter. There is nothing of them in fact. Coat collars have gone up in a most ambitious manner; hats have settled down humbly; there is nothing of them but the crowns. Here and there, also, the smallest apology for a knee braced against the seat, or palpa- ble evidence of boots hanging midway over the seat's end, make it rather a hazardous excursion through the alley-way.

Our party numbers twenty-five, ten of them children, and five women, who are going to homes prepared for them and now occupied by their husbands and fathers. The babies are now quiet with the exception of one, a stout, healthful child of two years, such as Barnum would rejoice in as an article of speculation. The mother is a gentle, attractive woman, occupying a seat next to ours. How she is to get through this journey with the care of a child so heavy, is yet to be seen. Every time the cars stop, little Ella sets up a cry of indignation and injured innocence. It