The people in the Pullman car, who were much more comfortably situated than those in the smoking car, or than the crew of the train hived up in the first baggage coach, were beginning to complain a good deal now. The colored porter, with rolling eyes and appealing gestures, met the conductor and the two girls.
"Ah kyan't stan' this no longer, Mistah Ca'tah," he almost sobbed. "Da's sumpin' got t' be did fo' all dese starbin white ladies an' gemmen—ya-as sah! Dey is jes' about drivin' me mad. I kyan't stan' it."
"What can't you stand, Nicodemus?" demanded Mr. Carter, good-naturedly.
"Dey is a-groanin' an' a-takin' on powerful bad 'cause dey ain't no dining kyar cotched up wid us yet."
"Dining car caught up with us?" gasped Nan and Bess together.
"What sort of a yarn have you been giving these passengers, Nick?" demanded the conductor.
"Well, Ah jes' done got t' tell 'em sumpin' t' pacify 'em," whispered the darkey. "No use lettin' 'em think dey gwyne t' starb t' death. Ah tell 'em yo' done sent back t' de Junction for a car-load ob eats an' dat it's expected t' arrive any hour. Ya-as, sah!"
"Why, you atrocious falsifier!" ejaculated Mr. Carter.
"Wot! me?" exclaimed the porter. "No, sah! Ah ain't nottin' like dat—no, sah! Ah reckon Ah done save dat little man's life. Yo' know, dat little drummer wot's trabelin' wid de big man. Dey was castin' lots t' see which one should be kilt fo' to be et by de odder—"
"Oh, mercy!" screamed Bess, and stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth.
"Ya-as, indeedy, Miss! Dey was gettin' mighty desprit. An de big feller, he says, 'Hit don't much matter which way de dice falls, I'm de bigges' an' I certainly kin holt ma own wid a little runt like you!' He says jes' lak' dat to his friend, de littles' feller."
Nan and Bess both hid their faces behind Mr. Carter's broad back.
"Ah got nerbous," pursued the darkey. "Dat big man looked lak' he was jes' going t' start right in on his fren'. An' de luck turns his way, anyhow, and de lil' feller loses. 'I gibs yo' 'twill six-thirty to-night,' de big man says. 'Dat's ma reg'lar dinner hour, an' I'm moughty savage ef I go much over ma dinner time.'
"Golly, boss!" added the porter, "Ah jes' 'bleeged tun say sumpin', an Ah tells 'em de dinin' kyar'll sho'ly obertake us fo' six-thirty. Ya'as, indeedy. An' den, dar's dat lady up dar wid de sour-vinegary sort o' face. Ah jes' heard her say she'd be fo'ced tuh eat her back-comb if she didn't have her lunch pu'ty soon. A' yo' knows, Mistah Ca'tah, no lady's indigestion is a-gwine tuh stan' up under no sech fodder as dat."
"You old silly!" ejaculated the conductor. "These people have been fooling you. I'll separate those two drummers so that they won't eat each other—or concoct any more stories with which to worry you, Nick. Come on, young ladies. We'll see about that dog."
"And look through the express matter—do!" begged Nan.
"Surely will," replied the conductor. "But I expect we'll have to tie and muzzle the express messenger."
Bess thought this funny, too, and she giggled again. In fact, Nan declared her chum had a bad case of the "giggles" and begged her to behave herself.
"I don't believe that castaways set out to explore their island for food in any such light-minded manner as you display, Elizabeth," Nan observed.
"Oh, dear! I can't help it," Bess gasped. "That darkey is so funny. He's just as innocent as—as—"
"The man, Friday," finished Nan.
"Goody! that's who he is," agreed Bess. "He's Friday. Oh! if Laura Polk were only here, wouldn't she have lots of fun with him?"
"Seems as though those two drummers were bothering poor Friday quite enough."
They heard the little spaniel yelping the moment they opened the baggage car door.
"The poor 'ittle sing!" cooed Bess, running to the corner where the puppy was imprisoned. "Oh! how cold it is in here. It would be a little icicle, so it would be, in a little while."
"Let's see where he's going, and whom he belongs to," Mr. Carter said. "I'll have to make a note of this, and so will Jim, the baggage-man. You want to take good care of this little tyke, for the railroad is responsible for him while he is in transit."
He stooped down and brought his light to bear upon the tag wired to the top of the crate. "Ravell Bulson, Jr., Owneyville, Illinois," he read aloud, making a note of it in his book.
"Oh!" ejaculated Nan.
"Oh!" repeated Bess.
Then both together the chums gasped: "That fat man!"
"Hullo!" observed the conductor, slipping the toggles out of the hasp, which kept the door of the dog crate closed. "Do you girls know the owner of this pup? You seem to know everybody."
"We know a Mr. Ravell Bulson by sight, Mr. Carter," Nan said quietly.
"And he's just the meanest man!" began impulsive Bess; but her chum stopped her with a glance.
"Well! Mr. Ravell Bulson, Jr., has a fine pup here," declared the conductor, releasing the agitated little creature.
The spaniel could not show his delight sufficiently when he was out of the crate. He capered about them, licking the girl's shoes, tumbling down in his haste and weakness, and uttering his funny little bark in excited staccato.
Bess finally grabbed him up and, after kissing her, suddenly, right under the ear, and making her squeal, he snuggled down in her arms, his little pink tongue hanging out and his eyes shining (so Bess declared) like "two brown stars."
"'Brown stars' is good," chuckled Nan. "You'll be talking about a cerise sky next, with a pea-green sun."
"Such a carping critic!" returned Bess. "But what care I? His eyes are brown stars, so now! And if you're not very good, Nan Sherwood, I'll make him bite you."
Mr. Carter was leading the way to the forward car, and the girls followed with the spaniel. It seemed a little lighter under the tunneled snow-bank between the two cars, and the conductor said, with some satisfaction:
"I believe it has stopped snowing and will clear up. I do surely hope that is the weather programme. We want to get out of here."
"And walk to Tillbury?" cried Nan.
"It would be one good, long walk," responded the conductor, grimly. "Hi, Jim!" he added to the baggage-man, whose face appeared through the tobacco smoke that filled the forward baggage car. "Jim, these young ladies are going to take care of the pup. Belongs to Ravell Bulson, Jr., Owneyville, Illinois. Make a note of it."
"Sure!" Jim said.
"Say! that's a funny thing," put in another man, who wore the lettered cap of the express company. "I've been looking over my way-bill, Carter, and a man named Ravell Bulson of that same address has shipped a package to himself from the Bancroft Creamery siding, up above Freeling. Package marked 'Glass—handle with care.'"
"Bully!" exclaimed the conductor. "That's condensed milk in glass jars, I bet. A number-one product. I've seen it. Anything else eatable on your list?"
"Not a thing, Carter."
"How far will twenty-four cans of condensed milk go among this gang of starving people?" growled a man in overalls and a greasy cap, whom the girls knew must be the engineer.
"You keep the fire up, Horace, so's we can melt snow," said the conductor, "and we can dilute the milk all right. It's good stuff."
"Fire!" exclaimed the engineer. "How do you expect my fireman to keep up a blaze under that boiler on the shag-end of nothing? I tell you the fire's going out in less than an hour. She ain't making a pound of steam right now."
"Great Peter, Horace!" ejaculated Mr. Carter, "don't say that. We havegotto have fire!"
"Well, you show me how to keep one going," said the engineer. "Unless you know some way of burning snow, I don't see how you're going to do it."
"Take it from me, we must find a way to keep steam up in these cars," said Mr. Carter. "We've shut off the last two cars. The smoker's packed with passengers as tight as a can of sardines."
"Oh! I wish he wouldn't talk about things eatable," groaned Bess, inNan's ear.
"Better put the women and the children in the Pullman," suggested the baggage-man.
"Can't. Their tickets don't call for first-class accommodations," said the conductor, stubbornly, "and none of them wants to pay the difference in tariff."
"You've got your hands full, Carter," said the express messenger. "How about the case of milk?" and he dragged a box into the middle of the floor.
"Say! you fellows let that case alone," exclaimed an unpleasant voice."That's mine. You the conductor? I have been hunting all over for you."
Nan and Bess had both turned, startled, when this speech began. It came from the fat man whom they had seen asleep in the smoking car. And, now that his face was revealed, the chums recognized Mr. Ravell Bulson, the man who had spoken so harshly of Nan's father the day of the collision on Pendragon Hill.
"Say! this is the expressman, I guess," pursued Mr. Bulson. "You're the man I really want to see. You'll see my name on that box—'R. Bulson, Owneyville, Illinois.' That's me. And I want to open that box and get something out of it."
"Do let's get out of here before he sees us," whispered Nan to her chum.
"No, I won't," returned Bess, in the same tone. "I want to hear how it comes out."
"Of course that horrid man won't let them use the milk for the poor little children on the train. And, goodness, Bess! you've got his dog right in your arms this moment."
"Well," said the stubborn Bess, "if that fat man takes a jar of condensed milk out of that box for himself, I'll make him give this poor little puppy some of it. Now you see if I don't!"
At first it did not look as though the fat man was going to get any of the milk even for his own consumption. The expressman said gruffly: "I can't let you open the package. It's against the rules of the company."
"Say! I shipped this package to myself. Here's the receipt," blusteredMr. Bulson. "I guess I can withdraw it from your care if I like."
"Guess again, mister," returned the expressman. "You've got three guesses, anyway."
The fat man was so assertive and over-bearing that it amused the chums from Tillbury to hear him thus flouted.
"I guess you don't know who I am?" cried the choleric fat man.
"You say your name is Bullhead—"
"Bulson!" roared the other. "Ravell Bulson. I own that milk."
"So it is condensed milk in that box, Mr. Bulson?" here interposed Mr.Carter, the conductor.
"Yes, it is," said Bulson, shortly. "I had business up near the Bancroft Creamery, and I stepped in there and bought a case of milk in glass, and shipped it home. I saw it being put aboard the express car of the other train and I had an idea it would be transferred at the Junction to this train. And here it is, and I want it."
"You're a public spirited citizen, Mr. Bulson," the conductor said suavely. "I expect you want to get this milk to divide among your fellow passengers? Especially among the children on the train?"
"What's that?" exclaimed Bulson, his eyes fairly bulging out with surprise.
"You are going to open the case of canned milk for the benefit of all hands?" said Mr. Carter, sternly.
"Wha—what do you take me for?" blurted out the fat man, indignantly. "Why, that's my milk! I'm not going to give it to anybody. What do you take me for?" he repeated.
The disgust and indignation with which Mr. Carter eyed him must have plainly shown a less thick-skinned mortal just what the conductor's opinion was. But Mr. Ravell Bulson, like most utterly selfish men, saw nothing.
"You must think I'm silly," pursued Bulson. "I shall want but a can or two for myself. Of course they'll come and plow us out before long. And I promised my wife to send that milk home."
"Wouldn't you even give any of that milk to this poor little puppy?" suddenly demanded Bess, whose anger at the fat man had been gradually rising until now, before Nan could stop her, it boiled over.
"Heh? Who areyou, Miss, if I may inquire?" snapped the fat man.
"It doesn't matter who I am," proclaimed Bess. "I wouldn't take a drop of that milk from you, anyway. But this poor little puppy is starving."
"Why, I declare!" interrupted Bulson. "That's the little dog I shipped to Junior."
"It's your own dog, Mr. Bulson," Bess declared. "And he's almost starved."
"And what areyoudoing with him?" demanded the fat man, rage suddenly narrowing his eyes again. "What kind of actions are these?" and he swung on the members of the train crew once more. "My dog is given to any Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes along, while I can't get at my own case of milk. Preposterous!"
The express messenger had received a signal from Mr. Carter, and now said:
"I tell you what it is, Mr. Bulson; I can't help you out. The matter is entirely out of my hands. Just before you came in the conductor levied on all my goods in transit and claimed the right to seize your case of milk for the benefit of the passengers. You'll have to send in your claim to our company, and it will get the value of the milk from the railroad people for you. That's all there is to it."
"What?" roared Mr. Bulson, aghast at these words.
"You heard me," responded the expressman, handing Mr. Carter a hammer and nail puller.
The conductor kneeled down and proceeded to open the box. The fat man would have torn his hair only he was bald and there was none he could spare.
"Get away from that box! get away!" he commanded, fairly dancing about the car. "Do you know what I'll do? I'll sue the company."
"All right. Begin suit at once," growled Mr. Carter. "Get out an injunction right away. Don't fret; you'll get your share of the milk with the rest of us."
"Why, it'sallmine," croaked the fat man, hoarse with wrath. "I'll show you—"
"Go 'way," ordered a burly brakeman, pushing him aside, and stooping to help pull off the cover of the box. "You ought to be taken out and dumped in the snow, mister. It would cool you off."
"Come, Bess!" urged Nan, anxiously. "Let's go away. We'll get the milk for the puppy afterward. I'm afraid there will be trouble."
"I wish they would throw that mean old Bulson into the snow. He deserves it," Bess returned bitterly.
"Do let's go away," Nan said again, as the men's voices became louder.
"Oh, dear me! you never will let me have any fun," declared Bess, her eyes sparkling.
"Do you call a public brawl, fun?" demanded Nan, as they opened the door of the car.
At that moment, just as the two girls with the squirming, shivering puppy, were about to step out upon the platform between the baggage cars, they were startled by a muffled shout from overhead.
"Oh! what's that?" gasped Bess.
Both she and Nan looked up. Lumps of snow from the roof of the tunnel began to fall. Then came a louder shout and a pair of booted legs burst through the roof.
"Goodness—gracious—me!" cried Nan. "Here comes—"
"An angelic visitor!" squealed Bess.
With another shout of alarm, a snow-covered figure plunged to the platform. The cowhide boots landed first, so the man remained upright. He carried a can in each hand, and all around the covers was frozen milk, betraying at once the nature of his load.
He was a slim, wiry man, in a ragged greatcoat, a cap pulled over his ears, sparkling, little, light-blue eyes of phenomenal shrewdness, and a sparse, strawcolor chin-whisker.
"Wall, I vow to Maria!" gasped the newcomer. "What's this I've dropped into?"
Bess was now laughing so that she could not speak, and the puppy was barking as hard as he could bark. Nan managed to ask:
"Who are you, sir, and where did you come from?"
"Si Snubbras is my name," declared the "heavenly visitor." "And I reckon I'm nearer home than you be, Miss, for I live right east of the railroad-cut, here. I was jest goin' across to Peleg Morton's haouse with this yere milk, when I—I sorter dropped in," and Farmer Snubbins went off into a fit of laughter at his own joke.
Mr. Si Snubbins was a character, and he plainly was very much pleased with himself. His little, sharp eyes apprehended the situation quickly.
"I vow to Maria!" repeated the farmer. "Ye air all snowed up here, ain't ye? A hull trainful o' folks. Wall!"
"And oh, Mr. Snubbins!" said Nan Sherwood, "you have milk in those cans, haven't you?"
"Sure have, Miss."
"Oh, Mr. Carter!" called Nan, running back into the forward car; "here's a man withfreshmilk. You don't have to take Mr. Bulson's."
"What's that?" demanded the baggage-man, Jim, in surprise. "Where'd he get it? From that cow-tree your friend was telling us about?"
"What's this about fresh milk?" asked Mr. Carter. "Be still, Bulson. You roar to fit your name. We can't hear the little lady."
"Who's that?" snarled the excited Bulson, glaring at Nan. "How came that girl on this train? Isn't that the Sherwood girl?"
But nobody paid the fat man much attention just then. The crew crowded after Nan and Mr. Carter toward the open door of the car.
"Hul-lo" exclaimed Mr. Carter, when he saw the farmer and realized how he had "dropped in." "That milk for sale?"
"Why, mister," drawled Snubbins, "I'm under contrac' ter Peleg Morton ter deliver two cans of milk to him ev'ry day. I wasn't goin' to have him claim I hadn't tried ter fulfil my part of the contrac', so I started 'cross-lots with the cans."
"How's he going to get the milk to the creamery?" demanded Mr.Carter, shrewdly.
Si's eyes twinkled. "That's his part of the contrac'; 'tain't mine," he said. "But if ye ax me, I tell ye honest, Mr. Conductor, I don't see how Peleg's goin' ter do it. This is a sight the heaviest snow we've had for ten year."
"What'll you sell that milk for?" interrupted the anxious conductor."Fresh milk will be a whole lot better for these kiddies we've got in thesmoker than condensed milk. Just the same," he added, "I shall hold on toBulson's shipment."
"What'll I take for this milk, mister?" repeated Snubbins, cautiously. "Wall, I dunno. I'spect the price has gone up some, because o' the roads being blocked."
"That will do—that will do," Mr. Carter hastened to say. "I'll take the milk, give you a receipt, and you can fight it out with the claim agent. I believe," added Mr. Carter, his lips twisting into a grim smile, "that you are the farmer whose cow was killed by this very train last fall, eh?"
"Ya-as," said Si Snubbins, sorrowfully. "Poor Sukey! She never knew what hit her."
"But the claim agent knew what hit the road when you put in your claim.That old cow wasn't worth more than ten dollars and you demanded fifty.Don't raise the tariff on this milk proportionately, for I'm sure theagent will not allow the claim."
Mr. Snubbins grinned and chuckled.
"I'll run my risk—I'll run my risk," he responded. "You kin have the milk for nawthin', if ye want it so bad. Bein' here all night, I expect ye be purty sharp-set, the whole on ye."
Mr. Carter had picked up the cans and had gone forward to have the milk thawed out at the boiler fire. Some of the brakemen had cleared away the snow by now and there was an open passage to the outside world. The keen kind blew in, and the pale, wintry sunshine lighted the space between the baggage cars. Mr. Snubbins grinned in his friendly way at the two girls.
"I reckon you gals," he said, "would just like to be over to my house where my woman could fry you a mess of flap-jacks. How's that?"
"Oh, don't mention it!" groaned Bess.
"Is your house near?" asked Nan.
"Peleg's the nighest. 'Tain't so fur. And when ye git out on top o' the snow, the top's purty hard. It blew so toward the end of that blizzard that the drifts air packed good."
"Yet you broke through," Bess said.
"Right here, I did, for a fac'" chuckled the farmer. "But it's warm down here and it made the snow soft."
"Of course!" cried Nan Sherwood. "The stale air from the cars would naturally make the roof of the tunnel soft."
"My goodness! Can't you see the train at all from up there?" Bess demanded. "Is it all covered up?"
"I reckon the ingin's out o' the snow. She's steamin' and of course she'd melt the snow about her boiler and stack," the farmer said. "But I didn't look that way."
"Say!" demanded Bess, with some eagerness. "Is that Peleg's house near?"
"Peleg Morton? Why, 'tain't much farther than ye kin hear a pig's whisper," said Mr. Snubbins. "I'm goin' right there, myself. My woman wants ter know is Celia all right. She's some worrited, 'cause Celia went over to visit Peleg's gal airly yesterday mornin' an' we ain't seen Celia since."
Mr. Carter came back with one of the brakemen just then, bearing a can of milk. The kindly conductor had found a tin plate, too—a section of the fireman's dinner kettle—and into this he poured some of the milk for the hungry little spaniel.
"There you are, Buster," he said, patting the dog, beside which Nan knelt to watch the process of consumption—for the puppy was so hungry that he tried to get nose, ears and fore-paws right in the dish!
"You're awfully kind," Nan said to Mr. Carter. "Now the little fellow will be all right."
"You better get him out of the way of that fat man," advised the conductor. "He owns the dog, you know. Bulson, I mean. He's forward in the other car, gourmandizing himself on a jar of condensed milk. I let him have one can; but I'm going to hold the rest against emergency. Now that the snow has stopped falling," he added cheerfully, as he passed on, "they ought to get help to us pretty soon."
The puppy was ready to cuddle down in his carrier and go to sleep when he had lapped up the milk. Nan wiped his silky ears with her pocket handkerchief, and his cunning little muzzle as well, and left him with a pat to go and seek Bess.
She found her chum still talking with Mr. Snubbins in the opening between the two cars. "Oh, Nan!" cried the impulsive one, rushing to meet her chum. "What do you think?"
"On what subject, young lady—on what subject?" demanded Nan, in her most dictatorial way, and aping one of the teachers at Lakeview Hall.
"On the subject of eats!" laughed Bess.
"Oh, my dear! Don't talk about it, please! If you drew a verbal picture of a banquet right now," Nan declared, "I'd eat it, verb and all."
"Do be sane and sensible," said Bess, importantly. "We're going out to supper. Now, wait! don't faint, Nan. This Mr. Snubbins is a dear! Why, he is a regular angel with chin whiskers—nothing less."
"He's never invited us to his house for supper?"
"No. His home is too far. But he says we can come along with him to Peleg's house and they will welcome us there. They are very hospitable people, these Mortons, so our angel says. And he and his daughter, Celia, will come back with us. And we can buy something there at the Mortons' to help feed the hungry children aboard the train."
That last appealed to Nan Sherwood, if nothing else did. There was but a single doubt in her mind.
"Oh, Bess!" she cried. "Do you think we ought to go? Shouldn't we ask permission?"
"Of whom?" demanded Bess, in surprise. "Surely the train won't steam off and leave us," and she broke into a laugh. "Oh, come on, Miss Fussbudget! Don't be afraid. I've been asking permission a dozen times a day for more than three months. I'm glad to do something 'off my own bat,' as my brother Billy says. Come on, Nan."
So Nan went. They found Mr. Si Snubbins, "the angel with chin whiskers," ready to depart. He climbed up first and got upon the crust of the snow; then he helped both girls to mount to his level. So another adventure for Nan and Bess began.
The almost level rays of a sinking sun shone upon a vast waste of white when the two girls from the snow-bound train started off with the farmer toward the only sign of life to be seen upon the landscape—a curl of blue smoke rising from a chimney of a farmhouse.
"That's Peleg's place," explained Mr. Snubbins. "He's a right well-to-do man, Peleg Morton is. We don't mind havin' our Celia go so much with Sallie Morton—though her mother does say that Sallie puts crazy notions into our Celia's head. But I reckon all gals is kinder crazy, ain't they?" pursued the farmer, with one of his sly glances and chuckles.
"Always!" agreed Bess, heartily. "Half of our girls at Lakeview Hall have to be kept in straightjackets, or padded cells."
"Mercy, Bess!" whispered Nan. "That's worthy of extravagant LauraPolk herself."
"Thank you," responded Bess, as the farmer recovered from a fit of "the chuckles" over Bess Harley's joke. Bess added this question:
"What particular form of insanity do your daughter and Sallie Morton display, Mr. Snubbins?"
"Movin' picters," ejaculated the farmer. "Drat 'em! They've jest about bewitched my gal and Sallie Morton."
"Goodness!" gasped Nan. "There aren't moving picture shows away out here in the country, are there?"
"Oncet a week at the Corner," said Mr. Snubbins. "An' we all go. But that ain't so much what's made Celia and Sallie so crazy. Ye see, las' fall was a comp'ny makin' picters right up here in Peleg's west parster. Goodness me! there was a crowd of 'em. They camped in tents like Gypsies, and they did the most amazin' things—they sure did!
"Dif'rent from Gypsies," pursued the farmer, "they paid for all they got around here. Good folks to sell chicken an' aigs to. City prices, we got," and Mr. Snubbins licked his lips like a dog in remembrance of a good meal.
"An' I vow ter Maria!" the man went on to say, with some eagerness. "We 'most all around here air in them picters; ya-as'm! Ye wouldn't think I was an actor, would ye?" And he went off into another spasm of chuckles.
"Oh, what fun!" cried Bess.
"Paid us two dollars a day for jest havin' our photographts took, they did," said Mr. Snubbins.
"And they paid three to the gals, 'cause they dressed up. That's what set Celia and Sallie by the ears. Them foolish gals has got it in their heads that they air jest cut out for movin' picter actresses. They wanter go off ter the city an' git jobs in one o' chem there studios! Peleg says he'll spank his gal, big as she is, if she don't stop sich foolish talk. I reckon Celia won't go fur without Sallie."
"My! it must be quite exciting to work for the pictures," said romantic Bess.
"Sure it is," chuckled the farmer. "One feller fell off a hoss while they was up here an' broke his collarbone; an' one of the gals tried ter milk our old Sukey from the wrong side, an' Sukey nigh kicked her through the side of the shed," and Mr. Snubbins indulged in another fit of laughter over this bit of comedy.
He was still chuckling when they climbed down from the hard eminence of a drift into a spot that had been cleared of snow before the Morton's side door. At once the door was opened and a big, bewhiskered man looked out.
"Well, well, Si!" he ejaculated. "I thought them was your Celia and my Sallie.Themgirls air strangers, ain't they? Some more of that tribe of movin' picture actresses?"
"I vow ter Maria, Peleg!" ejaculated Mr. Snubbins. "What's happened toCelia? Ain't she here?"
"No. Nor no more ain't Sallie," Mr. Morton said. "Come in. Bring in them young ladies. I'll tell ye about it. Sallie's maw is mighty upsot."
"But ain't Celiahere?" reiterated Mr. Snubbins, as he and the chums from Tillbury passed into the warm, big kitchen.
"No, she ain't, I tell you."
"But she started over for here yesterday morning, figgerin' to spend the day with your Sallie. When she didn't come back at night my woman an' me reckoned it snowed so hard you folks wouldn't let her come."
"Oh, lawk!" exclaimed Mr. Morton. "They was off yesterday mornin' just as soon as your Celia got here. Planned it all a forehand—the deceivin' imps! Said they was goin' to the Corner. An' they did! Sam Higgin picked 'em up there an' took 'em along to Littleton; an' when he plowed past here jest at evenin' through the snow he brought me a note. Hi, Maw, bring in that there letter," shouted Peleg Morton.
That the two men were greatly disturbed by the running away of their daughters, there could be no doubt. Nan was sorry she and Bess had come over from the train. These people were in serious trouble and she and her chum could not help them.
She drew the wondering Bess toward the door, and whispered: "What do you think, Bess? Can't we go back to the train alone?"
"What for, Nan?" cried Bess.
"Well, you see, they are in trouble."
At that moment Mrs. Morton hurried in with a fluttering sheet of paper in her hand. She was a voluminous woman in a stiffly starched house dress, everything about her as clean as a new pin, and a pair of silver-bowed spectacles pushed up to her fast graying hair. She was a wholesome, hearty, motherly looking woman, and Nan Sherwood was attracted to her at first sight.
Even usually unobservant Bess was impressed. "Isn't she alove?" she whispered to Nan.
"Poor woman!" Nan responded in the same tone, for there were undried tears on the cheeks of the farmer's wife.
"Here's Si, Maw," said Mr. Morton. "He ain't been knowin' about our girl and his Celia runnin' off, before."
"How do, Si?" responded Mrs. Morton. "Your wife'll be scairt ter death, I have no doubt. What'll become of them foolish girls—Why, Peke! who's these two young ladies?"
Mr. Morton looked to Mr. Snubbins for an introduction, scratching his head. Mr. Snubbins said, succinctly: "These here gals are from a railroad train that's snowed under down there in the cut. I expect they air hungry, Miz' Morton."
"Goodness me! Is that so?" cried the good woman, bustling forward and jerking her spectacles down astride her nose, the better to see the unexpected guests. "Snowed up—a whole train load, did you say? I declare! Sit down, do. I won't haf to put any extry plates on the supper table, for Ididhave it set, hopin' Sallie an' Celia would come back," and the poor mother began to sob openly.
"I vow, Maw! Youdobeat all. Them gals couldn't git back home through this snow, if they wanted to. And they likely got to some big town or other," said Mr. Morton, "before the worst of the blizzard. They've got money; the silly little tykes! When they have spent it all, they'll be glad to come back."
"Celia will, maybe," sobbed Mrs. Morton, brokenly. "She ain't got the determination of our Sallie. She'd starve rather than give in she was beat. We was too ha'sh with her, Paw. I feel we was too ha'sh! And maybe we won't never see our little gal again," and the poor lady sat down heavily in the nearest chair, threw her apron over her head, and cried in utter abandon.
Nan Sherwood could not bear to see anybody cry. Her heart had already gone out to the farmer's wife whose foolish daughter had left home, and to see the good woman sobbing so behind her apron, won every grain of sympathy and pity in Nan's nature.
"Oh, you poor soul!" cried the girl, hovering over Mrs. Morton, and putting an arm across her broad, plump shoulders. "Don't cry—don't, don't cry! I'msurethe girls will come back. They are foolish to run away; but surely they will be glad to get back to their dear, dear homes."
"You don't know my Sallie," sobbed the woman.
"Oh! but she can't forget you—of course she can't," Nan said. "Why ever did they want to run away from home?"
"Them plagued movin' picters," Mr. Snubbins said gruffly, blowing his nose. "I don't see how I kin tell my woman about Celia."
"It was that there 'Rural Beauty' done it," Mr. Morton broke in peevishly. "Wish't I'd never let them film people camp up there on my paster lot and take them picters on my farm. Sallie was jest carried away with it. She acted in that five-reel film, 'A Rural Beauty.' And I must say she looked as purty as a peach in it."
"That's what they've run away for, I bet," broke in Si Snubbins. "Celia was nigh about crazy to see that picter run off. She was in it, too. Of course, a big drama like that wouldn't come to the Corner, and I shouldn't wonder if that's what took 'em both to the city, first of all. Still," he added, "I reckon they wanter be actorines, too."
Bess suppressed a giggle at that, for Si Snubbins was funny, whether intentionally so or not. Nan continued to try to soothe the almost hysterical Mrs. Morton. Mr. Morton said:
"Let's have that letter, Maw, that Sallie writ and sent back by SamHiggins from Littleton."
Mrs. Morton reached out a hand blindly with the paper in it. Nan took it to give to Mr. Morton.
"You read it, Si," said Mr. Morton. "I ain't got my specs handy."
"Neither have I—and I ain't no hand to read writin' nohow," said his neighbor, honestly. "Here, young lady," to Nan. "Your eyes is better than ourn; you read it out to us."
Nan did as she was asked, standing beside Mrs. Morton's chair the while with a hand upon her shoulder:
"'Dear Maw and Paw:—
"'Celia and me have gone to the city and we are going to get jobs with the movies. We know we can—and make good, too. You tell Celia's Paw and Maw about her going with me. I'll take care of her. We've got plenty money—what with what we earned posing in those pictures in the fall, the Rural Beauty, and all. We will write you from where we are going, and you won't mind when you know how successful we are and how we are getting regular wages as movie actresses.
"'Good-bye, dear Paw and Maw, and a hundred kisses for Maw from
"'Your daughter,
"'Sallie Morton.
"'P.S.—I won't be known by my own name in the movies. I've picked a real nice sounding one, and so has Celia.'"
"There! You see?" said Mrs. Morton, who had taken the apron down so she could hear Nan the better. "We can't never trace 'em, because they'll be going by some silly names. Dear, dear me, Peke! Somethin' must be done."
"I dunno what, Maw," groaned the big man, hopelessly.
"What city have they gone to?" asked Bess, abruptly.
"Why, Miss," explained Mr. Morton, "they could go to half a dozen cities from Littleton. Of course they didn't stay there, although Littleton's a big town."
"Chicago?" queried Bess.
"Perhaps. But they could get to Detroit, or Indianapolis, or even toCincinnati."
"There are more picture making concerns in Chicago," suggested Nan, quietly, "than in the other cities named, I am sure. And the fare to Chicago is less than to the others."
"Right you air, Miss!" agreed Si Snubbins. "That's where them pesky gals have set out for, I ain't a doubt."
"And how are we goin' to get 'em back?" murmured Mr. Morton.
"The good Lord won't let no harm come to the dears, I hope and pray," said his wife, wiping her eyes. "Somebody'll be good to 'em if they get sick or hungry. There! We ain't showin' very good manners to our guests, Peke. These girls are off that train where there ain't a bite to eat, I do suppose; and they must be half starved. Let's have supper. You pull up a chair, too, Si."
"All right, Miz' Morton," agreed Mr. Snubbins, briskly.
Nan felt some diffidence in accepting the good woman's hospitality. She whispered again to Bess:
"Shall we stay? They're in such trouble."
"But goodness!" interrupted Bess. "I'm hungry. And we want to get her interested in the kiddies aboard the train."
"Yes, that's so," agreed Nan.
"Come, girls," Mrs. Morton called from the other room. "Come right in and lay off your things—do. You are pretty dears—both of you. City girls, I'spect?"
"No, ma'am," Nan replied. "We live in a small town when we are at home.But we've been to boarding school and are on our way home for Christmas."
"And after that," Bess added briskly, "we're going to Chicago for two—whole—weeks!"
"You air? Well, well! D'you hear that, Peke?" as her husband came heavily into the room.
"What is it, Maw?"
"These girls are going to Chicago. If our Sallie and Si's Celia have gone there, mebbe these girls might come across them."
"Oh, Mrs. Morton!" cried Nan. "If we do, we will surely send them home to you. Or, if they are foolish enough not to want to come, we'll let you know at once where they are."
"Of course we will," agreed Bess.
"If you only had a picture of your daughter?" suggested Nan.
"Of Sallie? Why, we have," said Mrs. Morton. "She's some bigger now; but she had her photographt took in several 'poses', as they call 'em, when she was playin' in that 'Rural Beauty'. I got the prints myself from the man that took 'em."
But when she hunted for the pictures, Mrs. Morton found they weremissing. "I declare for't!" she said, quite vexed. "I do believe thatSallie took 'em with her to show to folks she expects to ask for work.Jest like her! Oh, she's smart, Sallie is."
"There's that picter she had took the time we went to the County Fair, three year ago, Maw," suggested Mr. Morton, as they prepared to sit down to the bountiful table. "I 'low she's filled out some since then; she was as leggy as a colt. But these gals can see what she looks like in the face."
While he was speaking his wife brought forth the family album—a green plush affair with a huge gilt horseshoe on the cover. She turned over the leaves till she found Sallie's photograph, and displayed it with pride. Nan secretly thought her father's description of Sallie at twelve years old or so was a very good one; but Mrs. Morton evidently saw no defects in her child's personal appearance.
"Sallie wore her hair in curls then, you see," said Mrs. Morton. "But she says they ain't fashionable now, and she's been windin' her braids into eartabs like that leadin' lady in the movie company done. Makes Sallie look dreadfully growed up," sighed the troubled woman. "I sartainly do hate to see my little girl change into a woman so quick."
"That's what my woman says," agreed Snubbins. "Celia's 'bout growed up, she thinks. But I reckon if her mother laid her across her lap like she uster a few years back, she could nigh about slap most of the foolishness out o' Celia. Gals nowadays git to feel too big for their boots—that's what the matter."
"Mercy!" gasped Bess. "I hope my mother won't go back to first principles with me, if I displease her. And I'm sure your Celia can't be really bad."
"Just foolish—just foolish, both on 'em," Mr. Morton said. "Let me help you again."
"Oh, I'm so full," sighed Bess.
"I'm afraid ye ain't makin' out a supper," Mrs. Morton said.
"Indeed we are," cried Nan. "I only wish the children on that snow-bound train had some of these good things."
This turned the current of conversation and the Mortons were soon interested in the girls' story of the castaways in the snow. Mrs. Morton set to work at once and packed two big baskets with food. A whole ham that she had boiled that day was made into sandwiches. There were hard boiled eggs, and smoked beef and cookies, pies and cakes. In fact, the good woman stripped her pantry for the needy people in the stalled train.
Her husband got into his outer garments and helped Si Snubbins carry the baskets across the snow. Mrs. Morton's last words to the girls were:
"Do,do, my dears, try to find my girl and Celia when you go toChicago."
Nan and Bess promised to do so, for neither realized what a great city Chicago is, and that people might live there, almost side by side, for years and never meet.
"What do you think of those two girls, anyway, Nan?" Bess Harley asked.
This was late in the evening, after the porter had made up their berths again in the Pullman. The baskets of food had been welcomed by the snow-bound passengers with acclaim. The two girls were thanked more warmly for their thoughtfulness than Nan and Bess believed they really deserved.
Bess Harley's question, of course, referred to Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins, the girls who had run away from home to become moving picture actresses. Nan replied to her chum's query:
"That Sallie Morton must be a very silly girl indeed to leave such a comfortable home and such a lovely mother. Perhaps Celia Snubbins may not have been so pleasantly situated; but I am sure she had no reason for running away."
Bess sighed. "Well," she murmured, "it must be great fun to work for the movies. Just think of those two country girls appearing in a five-reel film like 'A Rural Beauty.'"
"Well, for goodness' sake, Bess Harley!" cried Nan, astonished, "have you been bitten bythatbug?"
"Don't call it 'bug'—that sounds so common," objected Bess. "Call it 'bacilli of the motion picture.' It must begreat," she added emphatically, "to see yourself acting on the screen!"
"I guess so," Nan said, with a laugh. "A whole lot those two foolish girlsactedin that 'Rural Beauty' picture. They were probably two of the 'merry villagers' who helped to make a background for the real actresses. You know very well, Bess, that girls like us wouldn't be hired by any film company for anything important."
"Why—you know, Nan," her chum said, "that some of the most highly paid film people are young girls."
"Yes. But they are particularly fitted for the work. Do you feel the genius of a movie actress burning in you?" scoffed Nan.
"No-o," admitted Bess. "I think it is that hard boiled egg I ate. And it doesn't exactly burn."
Nan went off in a gale of laughter at this, and stage-struck Bess chimed in. "I don't care," the latter repeated, the last thing before they climbed into their respective berths, "it must be oodles of fun to work for the movies."
While the chums slept there were great doings outside the snow-bound train. The crew turned out with shovels, farmers in the neighborhood helped, and part of a lately arrived section gang joined in to shovel the snow away from the stalled engine and train.
Cordwood had been bought of Peleg Morton and hauled over to the locomotive for fuel. With this the engineer and fireman managed to make sufficient steam to heat the Pullman coach and the smoking car. Nan and Bess had brought little "Buster," as the spaniel had been named, into their section and, having been fed and made warm, he gave the girls hardly any trouble during the night.
Selfish Mr. Bulson, who had shipped the puppy home to his little boy, seemed to have no interest whatsoever in Buster's welfare.
It was not until the great snow-plow and a special locomotive appeared the next morning, and towed the stalled train on to its destination, and Nan Sherwood and her chum arrived at Tillbury, that Nan learned anything more regarding Mr. Ravell Bulson.
Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood had been more than a little worried by Nan's delay in getting home and Mr. Sherwood was at the station to meet the train when it finally steamed into Tillbury.
Owneyville, which the girls knew to be Mr. Bulson's home town, was a station beyond Tillbury, and a much smaller town. The fat man had to change cars, so it was not surprising that he stepped down upon the Tillbury platform just as Nan ran into her father's arms.
"Oh, Papa Sherwood!" Nan almost sobbed.
"My dear Nancy!" he returned, quite as much moved.
And just then Mr. Bulson appeared beside them. "Well, Sherwood!" the fat man growled, "have you come to your senses yet?"
Robert Sherwood's face flushed and he urged Nan away along the snowy platform. "I don't care to talk to you, Bulson," he said shortly.
"Well, youwilltalk to me!" exclaimed the angry fat man. "I'll get you into court where you'll have to talk."
Mr. Sherwood kept right on with Nan and Bulson was left fuming and muttering on the platform. Bess had already been put into the family sleigh and was being whisked home. Nan and her father tramped briskly through the snowy streets toward "the little dwelling in amity," which Nan had not seen since leaving Tillbury for her Uncle Henry Sherwood's home at Pine Camp, ten months before.
"Oh,dear, Papa Sherwood!" gasped Nan. "What is the matter with that horrid man? He says the most dreadful things about you!"
"What's that?" demanded her father, quickly. "What do you know about Bulson?"
"More than I really want to know about him," said Nan, ruefully. She related briefly what had happened a few days before on Pendragon Hill. "And when he called you a rascal, I—oh! I was very, very angry! What did he mean, Papa Sherwood?"
But her father postponed his explanation until later; and it was really from her mother that Nan heard the story of Mr. Sherwood's trouble with Ravell Bulson. Mrs. Sherwood was very indignant about it, and so, of course, was Nan.
A week or more before, Mr. Sherwood had had business in Chicago, and in returning took the midnight train. The sleeping car was side-tracked at Tillbury and when most of the passengers were gone the man in the berth under Mr. Sherwood's began to rave about having been robbed. His watch and roll of banknotes had disappeared.
The victim of the robbery was Mr. Ravell Bulson. Mr. Bulson had at once accused the person occupying the berth over his as being the guilty person. Nan's father had got up early, and had left the sleeping car long before Mr. Bulson discovered his loss.
The railroad and the sleeping car company, of course, refused to acknowledge responsibility for Mr. Bulson's valuables. Nor on mere suspicion could Mr. Bulson get a justice in Tillbury to issue a warrant for Mr. Sherwood.
But Ravell Bulson had been to the Sherwood cottage on Amity Street, and had talked very harshly. Besides, the fat man had in public loudly accused his victim of being dishonest.
Mr. Sherwood's reputation for probity in Tillbury was well founded; he was liked and respected; those who really knew him would not be influenced by such a scandal.
But as Mr. Sherwood was making plans to open an agency in Tillbury for a certain automobile manufacturing concern, he feared that the report of Mr. Bulson's charge would injure his usefulness to the corporation he was about to represent. To sue Bulson for slander would merely give wider circulation to the story the fat man had originated.
Ravell Bulson was a traveling man and was not often in Tillbury—that was one good thing. He had a reputation in his home town of Owneyville of being a quarrelsome man, and was not well liked by his neighbors.
Nevertheless a venomous tongue can do a great deal of harm, and a spiteful enemy may sometimes bring about a greater catastrophe than a more powerful adversary.
"Now! whatdoyou know about this?" Bess Harley demanded, with considerable vexation.
"Of course, it's a mistake—or else that big clock's wrong," declaredNan Sherwood.
"No fear of a railroad clock's being wrong," said her chum, grumpily. "That old time table was wrong.They'realways wrong. No more sense to a time table than there is to a syncopated song.Itsaid we were to arrive in this station three-quarters of an hour ago—and it turns out that it meant an entirely different station and an entirely different train."
Nan laughed rather ruefully. "I guess it is our own fault and not the time table's. But the fact remains that we are in the wrong place, and at the wrong time. Walter and Grace, of course, met that other train and, not finding us, will have gone home, not expecting us till to-morrow."
"Goodness, what a pickle!" Bess complained. "And how will we find theMason's house, Nan Sherwood?"
The chums had the number and street of their friends' house, but it occurred to neither of them to go to a telephone booth and call up the house, stating the difficulty they were in. Nor did the girls think of asking at the information bureau, or even questioning one of the uniformed policemen about the huge station.
"Now, of course," Nan said firmly, "some street car must go within walking distance of Grace's house."
"Of course, but which car?" demanded Bess.
"That is the question, isn't it?" laughed Nan.
"One of these taxi-cabs could take us," suggested Bess.
"But they cost so much," objected her friend. "And we can't read those funny clocks they have and the chauffeur could overcharge us all he pleased. Besides," Nan added, "I don't like their looks."
"Looks of what—the taxis?"
"The chauffeurs," responded Nan, promptly.
"We-ell, we've got to go somehow—and trust to somebody," Bess said reflectively. "I wonder should we go to that hotel where we stayed that week with mother? They would take us in I suppose."
"But goodness! why should we be so helpless?" demanded Nan. "I'm sure two boys would start right out and find their way to Grace's."
"Would youdare?" cried Bess.
"Why not? Come on! We don't want to spend all our money in taxi fares. Let's go over there and ask that car man who seems to be bossing the conductors and motormen."
The girls, with their handbags, started across the great square before the station. Almost at once they found themselves in a tangle of vehicular traffic that quite confused Bess, and even troubled the cooler-headed Nan.
"Oh, Nan! I'm scared!" cried her chum, clinging with her free hand toNan's arm.
"For pity's sake, don't be foolish!" commanded Nan. "You'll get me excited, too—Oh!"
An automobile swept past, so near the two girls that the step brushed their garments. Bess almost swooned. Nan wished with all her heart that they had not so recklessly left the sidewalk.
Suddenly a shrill voice cried at her elbow: "Hi, greeny! you look out, now, or one of these horses will take a bite out o' you. My! but you're the green goods, for fair."
Nan turned to look, expecting to find a saucy street boy; but the owner of the voice was a girl. She was dirty-faced, undersized, poorly dressed, and ill-nourished. But she was absolutely independent, and stood there in the crowded square with all the assurance of a traffic policeman.
"Come on, greenies," urged this strange little mortal (she could not have been ten years old), "and I'll beau you over the crossing myself. Something'll happen to you if you take root here."
She carried in a basket on her arm a few tiny bunches of stale violets, each bunch wrapped in waxed paper to keep it from the frost. Nan had seen dozens of these little flower-sellers of both sexes on the street when she had passed through Chicago with her Uncle Henry the winter before.
"Oh, let's go with her," cried the quite subdued Bess. "Do, Nan!"
It seemed rather odd for these two well-dressed and well-grown girls to be convoyed by such a "hop-o'-my-thumb" as the flower-seller. But the latter got Nan and Bess to an "isle of safety" in a hurry, and would then have darted away into the crowd without waiting to be thanked, had not Nan seized the handle of her basket.
"Wait!" she cried. "Don't run away."
"Hey!" said the flower-seller, "I ain't got time to stop and chin-chin. I got these posies to sell."
"Sell us two," Nan commanded. "Wait!"
"Aw right. 'F you say so," said the small girl. "Fifteen a bunch," she added quickly, shrewdly increasing by a nickel the regular price of the stale boutonnières.
Nan opened her purse to pay for both. Bess said, rather timidly: "I should think you would be afraid of getting run over every time you cross the street—you're so little."
"Aw—say!" responded the strange girl, quite offended. "What d'ye think I am—akid? I live here, I do! I ain't country, and don't know me way 'round."
"Meaning that weare, I suppose?" laughed Nan.
"Well," drawled the girl, "it sticks out all over you. I can tell 'em a block away. An' I bet you're lost and don't know where you're goin'. You two didn't come here to be pitcher actors, did ye?"
"Why—no!" gasped Bess.
Nan was moved to ask. "What put that idea in your head, honey?"
"I guess 'most girls that run away from home nowadays are lookin' to make a hit in the pitchers—ain't they?"
"You ridiculous child, you!" laughed Bess. "We haven't run away."
"No? Well, I thought mebbe youse did," said the flower-seller, grinning impishly. "I see a plenty of 'em comin' off the trains, I do."
"Runaway girls?" cried Nan,
"They don't tell me they have run away. But they are all greenies—just as green as grass," this shrewd child of the street declared.
"Have you seen any girls lately who have come to the city to be picture actresses?" Nan asked with sudden eagerness.
"Yep," was the reply.
"Sure?" cried Bess. "You don't mean it!"
"Yes, I do. Two girls bigger'n you. Le's see—it was last Friday."
"The second day of the big blizzard?" cried Nan.
"That's the very day," agreed Bess. "It's when Sallie and Celia would have got here if theywerecoming to Chicago."
"Hi!" exclaimed the flower girl. "What's you talkin' about? Who's Sallie and Celia?"
"Girls whom we think came to the city the other day just as you said,"Nan explained. "They have run away to be moving picture actresses."
"Hi!" exclaimed the flower-seller again. "What sort o' lookin' girls?"
"Why—I don't know exactly," confessed Nan. "Do we, Bess? Mrs. Morton said Sallie took with her those photographs that were taken while the girls were playing as extras in 'A Rural Beauty.'"
"That's it!" suddenly interrupted the flower-girl. "I bet I seen those two. They didn't call each other 'Sallie' and 'Celia'; but they had some fancy names—I forgot what."
"Oh! are yousure?" cried Bess.
"They had them photographs just like you say. They showed 'em to me. You see," said the little girl, "I showed 'em where they could eat cheap, and they told me how they was going to join a movie company."