“Let’s take the auto bus – I always did love that word bus. It seems to mean a London night in a fog.”
“Well, I am sure it will mean good times, and I assure you, Tavia, Aunt Winnie has not forgotten you. You are to come.”
“There is only one Aunt Winnie in the world,” declared Tavia, “and she is the Aunty Winnie of Dorothy Dale.” Tavia was never demonstrative, but just now she squeezed Dorothy’s hand almost white. “How can I manage to get through with Dalton? I have to give home at least three snowstorms.”
“We are getting them right now,” said Dorothy. “I am afraid we will be snowbound when we reach the next stop.”
Wheeling about in her chair, Tavia flattened her face against the window as the train smoke tried to hide the snowflakes from her gaze. Dorothy was still occupied with her mail.
“It does come down,” admitted Tavia, “but that will mean a ride for me in old Daddy Brennen’s sleigh. He calls it a sleigh, but you remember, Doro, it is nothing more than the fence rails he took from Brady’s, buckled on the runners he got from Tim, the ragman. And you cannot have forgotten the rubber boot he once used for a spring.”
“It was a funny rig, sure enough,” answered Dorothy, “but Daddy Brennen has a famous reputation for economy.”
“I hope he does not take it into his head to economize on my spinal cord by going over Evergreen Hill,” replied Tavia. “I tried that once in his rattletrap, and we had to walk over to Jordan, and from there I rode home on a pair of milk cans. But Doro,” she continued, “I cannot get over the sudden taking away of Mingle Dingle. Surely the gods sent that telegram to save me.”
“I hope nothing serious has happened at her home,” Dorothy mused. “I never heard anything about her family.”
“You don’t suppose a little mouse of a thing, like that born music teacher, has any family,” replied Tavia irreverently. “I shall ever after this have a respect for the proverbial feather bed.”
“Here is Stony Junction,” Dorothy remarked, as the trainman let in a gust of wind from the vestibuled door to shout out the name of that station. “Madeline Maher gets off here. There, she is waving to us! We should have spoken to her.”
“Never too late,” declared Tavia, and she actually shouted a good-bye and a merry Christmas almost the full length of the car. Dorothy waved her hand and “blew” a kiss, to which the pretty girl who, with the porter close at her heels, was leaving the train for her home, responded. Chairs swung around simultaneously to allow their occupants a glimpse of the girl who had startled them with her shout. Some of the passengers smiled – especially did one young man, whose bag showed the wear usually given in college sports. He dropped his paper, and, not too rudely, smiled straight at Tavia.
“There!” exclaimed she. “See what a good turn does. Just for wishing Maddie a hilarious time I got that smile.”
“Don’t,” cautioned Dorothy, to whom Tavia’s recklessness was ever a source of anxiety. “We have many miles to go yet.”
“‘So much the better,’ as the old Wolfie, in Little Red Riding Hood, said,” Tavia retorted. “I think I shall require a drink of water directly,” and she straightened up as if to make her way to the end of the car, in order to pass the chair of the young man with the scratched-up suitcase.
Dorothy sighed, but at the same time she smiled. Tavia could not be repressed, and Dorothy had given up hope of keeping her subdued.
“Come to think of it,” reflected Tavia, “I never had any permanent luck with the drinking water trick. He looks so nice – I might try being sweet and refined,” and she turned away, making the most absurd effort to look the part.
“Getting sense,” commented Dorothy. “We may now expect a snowslide.”
“And have my hero dig me out,” added the irrepressible one. “Wouldn’t that be delicious! There! Look at that! It is coming down in snowballs!”
“My!” exclaimed Dorothy, “it is awful! I hope the boys do not fail to meet me.”
“Oh, if they didn’t, you would be all right,” said Tavia. “They serve coffee and rolls at North Birchland Station on stormy nights.”
“I declare!” exclaimed Dorothy, “that young man is a friend of Ned’s! I met him last Summer, now I remember.”
“I knew I would have good luck when I played the sweet-girl part,” said Tavia, with unhidden delight. “Go right over and claim him.”
“Nonsense,” replied Dorothy, while a slight blush crept up her forehead into her hair. “We must be more careful than ever. Boys may pretend to like girls who want a good time, but my cousins would never tolerate anything like forwardness.”
“Only where they are the forwarders,” persisted Tavia. “Did not the selfsame Nat, brother to the aforesaid Ned – ”
As if the young man in front had at the same time remembered Dorothy, he left his seat and crossed the aisle to where the girls sat. His head was uncovered, of course, but his very polite manner and bow amply made up for the usual hat raising.
“Is not this Miss Dale?” he began, simply.
“Yes,” answered Dorothy, “and this Mr. Niles?”
“Same chap,” he admitted, while Tavia was wondering why he had not looked at her. “Perhaps,” she thought, “he will prove too nice.”
“I was just saying to my friend,” faltered Dorothy, “that I hope nothing will prevent Ned and Nat from meeting me. This is quite a storm.”
“But it makes Christmas pretty,” he replied, and now he did deign to look at Tavia. Dorothy, quick to realize his friendliness, immediately introduced the two.
It was Tavia’s turn to blush – a failing she very rarely gave in to. Perhaps some generous impulse prompted the gentleman who occupied the chair ahead to leave it and make his way toward the smoking room. This gave Mr. Niles a chance to sit near the girls.
“We expect a big time at Birchland this holiday,” he said. “Your cousins mentioned you would be with us.”
“Yes, they cannot get rid of me,” Dorothy replied, in that peculiar way girls have of saying meaningless things. “I am always anxious to get to the Cedars – to see father and our boys, and Aunt Winnie, of course. I only wish Tavia were coming along,” and she made a desperate attempt to get Tavia into the conversation.
“Home is one of the Christmas tyrannies,” the young man said. “If it were not Christmas some of us might forget all about home.”
Still Tavia said not a single word. She now felt hurt. He need not have imagined she cared for his preaching, she thought. And besides, his tie needed pressing, and his vest lacked the top button. Perhaps he had good reasons for wanting to get home to his “Ma,” she was secretly arguing.
“You live in Wildwind – not far from the Cedars; do you not?” Dorothy asked.
“I did live there until last Fall,” he replied. “But mother lost her health, and has gone out in the country, away from the lake. We are stopping near Dalton.”
Tavia fairly gasped at the word “Dalton.”
“Then why don’t you go home for Christmas?” she blurted out.
“I am going to mother’s place to get her first,” he said. “Then, if she feels well enough, we will come back to the Birchlands.”
“My friend lives at Dalton,” Dorothy exclaimed, casting a look of admiration at the flushing Tavia.
“Indeed?” he replied. “That’s my station. I ride back from there. I am glad to have met someone who knows the place. I was fearful of being snowbound or station-bound, as I scarcely know the locality.”
“I expect to ride in Daddy Brennen’s sleigh,” said Tavia, with an effort. “He is the only one to know on a snowy night at Dalton.”
“Then