Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 1.djvu/70

56 the shop, “or Libby might have had most of the skin scrubbed off her and Will'm before night. And I know he ’d drink the water-cooler dry just for the pleasure of turning it into his new drinking-cup you gave him, if he had n’t been told not to. Well, they ’re off, and so interested in everything that I don’t believe they realized they were starting. There was n't time for them to think that they were really leaving you.”

“There ’ll be time enough before they get there,” was the grim answer. “I should n’t wonder if they both get to crying.”

Then for fear that she should start to doing that same thing herself, she left Miss Sally to attend to the shop, and went briskly to work, putting the kitchen to rights. She had left the breakfast dishes until after the children’s departure, for she had much to do for them, besides putting up two lunches. They left at ten o’clock, and could not reach their journey's end before half-past eight that night. So both dinner and supper were packed in the big pasteboard box which had been stowed away under the seat with their suitcase.

Miss Sally was right about one thing. Neither child realized at first that the parting was final, until the little shop was left far behind. The novelty of their surroundings, and their satisfaction at being really on board one of the wonderful cars which they had watched daily from the sitting-room window, made them feel that their best “s’posen” game had come true at last. But they had n’t gone five miles until the landscape began to look unfamiliar. They had never been in this direction before, toward the hill country. Their drives behind Uncle Neal’s old gray mare had always been the other way. Five miles more, and they were strangers in a strange land. Fifteen miles, and they were experiencing the bitterness of “exiles from home” whom “splendor dazzles in vain.” There was no charm left in the luxurious Pullman with its gorgeous red plush seats and shining mirrors. All the people they could see over the backs of those seats or reflected in those mirrors were strangers.

It made them even more lonely and aloof because the people did not seem to be strangers to each other. All up and down the car they talked and joked as people in this free and happy land always do when it ’s the day before Christmas and they are going home, whether they know each other or not. To make matters worse, some of those strangers acted as if they knew Will'm and Libby, and asked them questions or snapped their fingers at them in passing in a friendly way. It frightened Libby, who had been instructed in the ways of travel, and she only drew closer to Will'm and said nothing when these strange faces smiled on her.

Presently, Will'm gave a little, muffled sob, and Libby put her arm around his neck. It gave him a sense of protection, but it also started the tears which he had been fighting back for several minutes, and, drawing himself up into a bunch of misery close beside her, he cried softly, his face hidden against her shoulder. If it had been a big, capable shoulder, such as he was used to going to for comfort, the shower would have been over soon. But he felt its limitations. It was little and thin, only three years older and wiser than his own; as a support through unknown dangers not much to depend upon, still it was all he had to cling to, and he clung broken-heartedly and with scalding tears.

As for Libby, she was realizing its limitations far more than he. His sobs shook her every time they shook him, and she could feel his tears, hot and wet on her arm through her sleeve. She started to cry herself, but fearing that if she did he might begin to roar so that they would be disgraced before everybody in the car, she bravely winked back her own tears, and took an effective way to dry his.

Miss Sally had told them not to wash before it was time to eat, but of course Miss Sally had not known that Wil’m was going to cry and smudge his face all over till it was a sight. If she could n’t stop him somehow, he ’d keep on till he was sick, and she ’d been told to take care of him. The little shoulder humped itself in a way that showed some motherly instinct was teaching it how to adjust itself to its new burden of responsibility, and she said in a comforting way:

“Come on, brother, let ’s go and try what it ’s like to wash in that big, white basin with the chained-up hole in the bottom of it.”

There was a bowl apiece, and for the first five minutes their hands were white ducks swimming in a pond. Then the faucets were shining silver dragons, spouting out streams of water from their mouths to drown four little mermaids, who were not real mermaids, but children whom a wicked witch had changed to such and thrown into a pool. Then they blew soap-bubbles through their hands, till Will'm's squeal of delight over one especially fine bubble, which rested on the carpet a moment instead of bursting, brought the porter to the door to see what was the matter.

They were not used to colored people. He pushed aside the red plush curtain and looked in, but the bubble had vanished, and all he saw was a slim little girl of seven snatching up a towel to polish the red cheeks of a chubby boy