Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial402dodg).pdf/674

1066 Thrilled by the discovery, Will’m picked it up and fondled it with both little blue mittens, It did n’t tick when he held it to his car, and he could n’t open it, but he was sure that Uncle Neal could open it and start it to going, and he was sure that it was the littlest watch in the world. It never occurred to him that finding it had n’t made it his own to have and to carry home, just like the rainbow-lined mussel shells that he sometimes picked up on the creek bank, or the silver dime he had once found in a wagon rut.

Then he looked up to see the steward strolling back toward him again, his hands still in his trousers’ pockets, But this time no fascinating baby watch bobbed hack and forth against his vest as he walked, and Will’m knew, with a sudden stab of disappointment that was as bad as earache, that the watch he was fondling could never be his to carry home and show proudly to Uncle Neal. It belonged to the man.

“Here!” he said, holding it out in the blue mitten.

“Well, I vow!” exclaimed the steward, looking down at his watch-fob, and then snatching the little disk of gold from the outstretched hand. “I would n’t have lost that for hardly anything. It must have come loose when I stooped to look under the car. I think more of that than almost anything I’ve got. See?”

And then Will’m saw that it was not a watch, but a little locket made to hang from a bar that was fastened to a wide black ribbon fob. The man pulled out the fob, and there, on the other end, where it had been in his pocket al] the time, was a big watch as big as Will’m’s fist. The locket flew open when he touched a spring, and there were two pictures inside, one of a lady, and one of a jolly, fat-cheeked baby.

“Well, little man!” exclaimed the steward, with a hearty clap on the shoulder that nearly upset him. “You don’t know how big a favor you ’ve done me by finding that locket. You’re just about the nicest boy I’ve come across yet. I ‘ll have to tell Santa Claus about you. What ’s your name?”

Will’m told him, and pointed across to the shop when asked where he lived. At the steward’s high praise, Will’m was ready to take the sky road himself, when he heard that he was to be reported to the master of the reindeer as the nicest boy the steward had come across. His disappointment vanished so quickly that he even forgot that he had been disappointed; and when the steward caught him under the arms and swung him up the steps, saying something about finding an orange, he was thrilled with a wild, brave sense of adventure.

Discovering that Will’m had never been on a Pullman since he could remember, the steward took him through the diner to the kitchen, showing him all the sights and explaining all the mysteries. It was as good as a show to watch the child’s face. He had never dreamed that such roasting and broiling went on in the narrow space of the car kitchen, or that such quantities of eatables were stored away in the mammoth refrigerators which stood almost touching the red-hot ranges, Big, shining fish from far-off waters, such as the Junction had never heard of, lay blocked in ice in one compartment. Ripe red strawberries lay in another, although it was mid-December, and in Will’m’s part of the world strawberries were not to be thought of before the first of June. There were more eggs than all the hens at the Junction could lay in a week, and a white-capped, white-jacketed colored man was beating up a dozen or so into a white mountain of meringue, which the passengers would eat by and by in the shape of some strange, delicious dessert, sitting at those fascinating tables he had passed on his way in,

A quarter of an hour later, when Will’m found himself on the ground again, gazing after the departing train, he was a trifle dazed with all he had seen and heard. But three things were clear in his mind: that he held in one hand a great, yellow orange, in the other a box of prize pop-corn, and in his heart the precious assurance that Santa Claus would be told by one in high authority that he was a good boy.

So elated was he by this last fact that he decided on the way home to send a letter up the chimney on his own account, especially as he knew now exactly what to ask for. He had been a bit hazy on the question before. Now he knew beyond all doubt that what he wanted more than anything in the wide world was a ride on a Pullman car. He wanted to sit at one of those tables and eat things that had been cooked in that mysterious kitchen, at the same time that he was flying along through the night on the wings of a mighty dragon breathing out smoke and fire as it flew.

He went into the house by way of the shop so that he might make the bell go ting-a-ling, It was so delightfully like the bells on the camels, also like the bells on the sleigh which would be coming before so very long to bring him what he wanted.

Miss Sally Watts was sitting behind the counter, crocheting. To his question of “Where ’s Dranma?” she answered without looking up.

“She and Mr, Neal have driven over to Westfield. They have some business at the