at each other.
“Is papa crying, do you suppose?” whispered John.
“No, I don’t think it can be that. Papa never does cry; but I’m afraid he’s feeling badly,” responded Elsie, in the same hushed tone. “Oh, dear, how horrid it is not even to have Clover at home! What are we going to do without her and Katy?”
“I don’t know I’m sure. You can’t think how queer I feel, Elsie,—just as if my heart had slipped out of its place, and was going down, down into my boots. I think it must be the way people feel when they are homesick. I had it once before when I was at Inches Mills, but never since then. How I wish Philly had never gone to skate on that nasty pond!” and John burst into a passion of tears.
“Oh, don’t, don’t!” cried poor Elsie, for Johnnie’s sobs were infectious, and she felt an ominous lump coming into her own throat, “don’t behave so, Johnnie. Think if papa came out, and found us crying! Clover particularly said that we must make the house bright for him. I’m going to sow the mignonette seed [desperately]; come and help me. The trowel is on the back porch, and you might get Dorry’s jack-knife and cut some little sticks to mark the places.”
This expedient was successful. Johnnie, who loved to “whittle” above all things, dried her tears, and ran for her shade hat; and by the time the tiny brown seeds were sprinkled into the brown earth of the borders, both the girls were themselves again. Dr. Carr appeared from his retirement half an hour later. A note had come for him meanwhile, but somehow no one had quite liked to knock at the door and deliver it.
Elsie handed it to him now, with a timid, anxious look, whose import seemed to strike him, for he laughed a little, and pinched her cheek as he read.
“I’ve been writing to Dr. Hope about the children,” he said; “that’s all. Don’t wait dinner for me, chicks. I’m off for the Corners to see a boy who’s had a fall, and I’ll get a bite there. Order something good for tea, Elsie; and afterward we’ll have a game of cribbage if I’m not called out. We must be as jolly as we can, or Clover will scold us when she comes back.”
Meanwhile the three travellers were faring through the first stage of their journey very comfortably. The fresh air and change brightened Phil; he ate a good dinner, and afterward took quite a long nap on a sofa, Clover sitting by to keep him covered and see that he did not get cold. Late in the evening they changed to the express train, and there again, Phil, after being tucked up behind the curtains of his section, went to sleep and passed a satisfactory night, so that he reached Chicago looking so much better than when they left Burnet that his father’s heart would have been lightened could he have seen him.
Mrs. Ashe came down to the station to meet them, together with Mr. Dayton,—a kind, friendly man with a tired but particularly pleasant face. All the necessary transfer of baggage, etc., was made easy, and they were carried off at once to the hotel where rooms had been secured. There they were rapturously received by Amy, and introduced to Mrs. Dayton, a sweet, spirited little matron, with a face as kindly as her husband’s, but not so worn. Mr. Dayton looked as if for years he had been bearing the whole weight of a railroad on his shoulders, as in one sense it may be said that he had.
“We have been here almost a whole day,” said Amy, who had taken possession, as a matter of course, of her old perch on Katy’s knee. “Chicago is the biggest place you ever saw, Tanta; but it isn’t so pretty as Burnet. And oh! don’t you think Car Forty-seven is nice,—the one we are going out West in, you know? And this morning Mr. Dayton took us to see it. It’s the cunningest place that ever was. There’s one dear little drawer in the wall that Mrs. Dayton says I may have to keep Mabel’s things in. I never saw a drawer in a car before. There’s a lovely little bedroom too, and such a nice washing-basin, and a kitchen, and all sorts of things. I can hardly wait till I show them to you. Don’t you think that travelling is the most delightful thing in the world, Miss Clover?”
“Yes—if only—people—don’t get too tired,” said Clover, with an anxious glance at Phil, as he lay back in an easy-chair. She did not dare say, “if Phil doesn’t get too tired,” for she had already discovered that nothing annoyed him so much as being talked about as an invalid, and that he was very apt to revenge himself by doing something imprudent immediately afterward, to disguise from an observant world the fact that he couldn’t do it without running a risk. Like most boys, he resented being “fussed over,”—a fact which made the care of him more difficult than it would otherwise have been.
The room which had been taken for Clover and Katy looked out on the lake, which was not far away; and the reach of blue water would have made a pretty view if trains of cars had not continually steamed between it and the hotel, staining the sky and blurring the prospect with their smokes. Katy wondered how it happened that the early settlers who laid out Chicago had not bethought themselves to secure this fine water frontage as an ornament to the future city; but Mr. Dayton explained that in the rapid growth of Western towns, things arranged themselves rather than were arranged for, and that the first pioneers had other things to think about than what a New Englander would call “sightliness,”—and Katy could easily believe this to be true.
Car Forty-seven was on the track when they drove to the station at noon next day. It was the end car of a long express train, which, Mr. Dayton told them, is considered the place of honor, and generally assigned to private cars. It was of an old-fashioned pattern, and did not compare, as they were informed, with the palaces on wheels built nowadays for the use of railroad presidents and directors. But though Katy heard of cars with French beds, plunge baths, open fireplaces, and other incredible luxuries, Car Forty-seven still seemed to her inexperienced eyes and Clover’s a marvel of comfort and convenience.
A small kitchen, a store closet, and a sort of baggage-room, fitted with berths for two servants, occupied the end of the car nearest the engine. Then came a dressing-closet, with ample marble basins where hot water as well as cold was always on tap; then a wide state-room, with a bed on either side, and then a large compartment occupying the middle of the car, where by day four nice little dining-tables could be set, with a seat on either side, and by night six sleeping sections made up. The rest of the car was arranged as a sitting-room, glassed all around, and furnished with comfortable seats of various kinds, a writing-desk, two or three tables of different sizes, and various small lockers and receptacles, fitted into the partitions to serve as catch-alls for loose articles of all sorts.
Bunches of lovely roses and baskets of strawberries stood on the tables; and quite a number of the Daytons’ friends had come down to see them off, each bringing some sort of good-by gift for the travellers,—flowers, hothouse grapes, early cherries, or home-made cake. They were all so cordial and pleasant and so interested in Phil, that Katy and Clover lost their hearts to each in turn, and forever afterward were ready to stand up for Chicago as the kindest place that ever was seen.
Then amid farewells and good wishes the train moved slowly out of the station, and the inmates of Car Forty-seven proceeded to “go to housekeeping,” as Mrs. Dayton expressed it, and to settle themselves and their belongings in these new quarters. Mrs. Ashe and Amy, it was decided, should occupy the state-room, and the other ladies were to dress there when it was convenient. Sections were assigned to everybody,—Clover’s opposite Phil’s so that she might hear him if he needed anything in the night; and Mr. Dayton called for all the bonnets and hats, and amid much laughter proceeded to pin up each in thick folds of newspaper, and fasten it on a hook not to be taken down till the end of the journey. Mabel’s feathered turban took its turn with the rest, at Amy’s particular request. Dust was the main thing to be guarded against, and Katy, having been duly forewarned, had gone out in the morning, and bought for herself and Clover soft hats of whity-gray felt and veils of the same color, like those which Mrs. Dayton and Polly had provided for the journey, and which had the advantage of being light as well as unspoilable.
But there was no dust that first morning, as the train ran smoothly across the fertile prairies of Illinois first, and then of Iowa, between fields dazzling with the fresh green of wheat and rye, and waysides studded with such wild-flowers as none of them had ever seen or dreamed of before. Pink spikes and white and vivid blue spikes; masses of brown and orange