by Annie Fellows Johnston, beginning October 1913
CHAPTER IV: A CHRISTMAS-EVE JOURNEY
Although L stands equally for Libby and lion, and W for William and whale, it is not to be inferred that the two small travelers thus labeled felt in any degree the courage of the king of beasts or the importance of the king of fishes. With every turn of the car-wheels after they left the Junction. Will'm seemed to grow smaller and more bewildered, and Libby more frightened and forlorn. In Will'm's picture of this ride they had borne only their initials. Now they were faring forth tagged with their full names and their father's address. Miss Sally had done that "in case anything should happen."
If Miss Sally had not suggested that something might happen, Libby might not have had her fears aroused, and if they had been allowed to travel all the way in the toilet room which Miss Sally and Grandma Neal showed them as the train waited its usual ten minutes at the Junction, they could have kept themselves too busy to think about the perils of pilgrimage. Never before had they seen water spurt from shining faucets into the big white basins with chained-up holes at the bottom. It suggested magic to Libby, and she thought of several games they could have made if they had not been hurried back to their seats in the car, and told they must wait until time to eat before washing their hands.
"I thought best to tell them that," said Miss Sally, as she and Mrs. Neal went slowly back to 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 Will'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 of four. When they went back to their seats, their finger-tips were curiously wrinkled from long immersion in the hot soap-suds, but the ache was gone out of their throats, and Libby thought it might be well for them to eat their dinner while their hands were so very clean. It was only quarter-past eleven, but it seemed to them that they had been traveling nearly a whole day.
A chill of disappointment came to Will'm when his food was handed to him out of a pasteboard box. He had not thought to eat it in this primitive fashion. He had expected to sit at one of the little tables, but Libby did n't know what one had to do to gain the privilege of using them. The trip was not turning out to be all he had fondly imagined. Still the lunch in the pasteboard box was not to be despised. Even disappointment could not destroy the taste of Grandma Neal's chicken sandwiches and blackberry jam.
By the time they had eaten all they wanted, and tied up the box and washed their hands again (no bubbles and games this time, for fear of the porter), it had begun to snow, and they found entertainment in watching the flakes that swirled against the panes in all sorts of beautiful patterns. They knelt on opposite seats each against a window. Sometimes the snow seemed to come in sheets, shutting out all view of the little hamlets and farm-houses past which they whizzed with deep, warning whistles, and sometimes it lifted to give them glimpses of windows with holly wreaths hanging from scarlet bows, and eager little faces peering out at the passing train—the way theirs used to peer, years ago, it seemed, before they started on this endless journey.
It makes one sleepy to watch the snow fall for a long time. After a while, Will'm climbed down from the window and cuddled up beside Libby again, with his soft, bobbed hair tickling her ear as he rested against her. He went to sleep so, and she put her arm around his neck again to keep him from slipping. The card with which Miss Sally had tagged him, slid along its cord and stuck up above his collar, prodding his chin. Libby pushed it back out of sight, and felt under her dress for her own. They must be kept safely, "in case something should happen." She wondered what Miss Sally meant by that. What could happen? Their own Mr. Smiley was on the engine, and the conductor had been asked to keep an eye on them.
Then her suddenly awakened fear began to suggest answers. Maybe something might keep her father from coming to meet them. She and Will'm would n't know what to do or where to go. They 'd be lost in a great city as the little match girl was on Christmas eve, and they 'd freeze to death on some stranger's door-step. There was a picture of the match girl thus frozen, in the Hans Andersen book which Susie Peters kept in her desk at school. There was a cruel stepmother picture in the same book, Libby remembered, and recollections of that turned her thoughts into still deeper channels of foreboding. What would she be like? What was going to happen to her and Will'm at the end of this journey, if it ever came to an end? If only they could be back at the Junction, safe and sound—
The tears began to drip slowly. She wiped them away with the back of the hand that was farthest away from Will'm. She was miserable enough to die, but she did n't want him to wake up and find it out.
By and by, a lady who had been quietly watching her for some time, came and sat down in the opposite seat and asked her what was the matter, and if she was crying because she was homesick, and what was her name, and how far they were going. But Libby never answered a single question. The tears just kept dripping, and her mouth working in a piteous attempt to swallow her sobs; and finally the lady saw that she was frightening her, and only making matters worse by trying to comfort her, so she went back to her seat.
When Will'm awakened after a while and sat up, leaving Libby's arm all stiff and prickly from being bent in one position so long, the train had been running for miles through a lonely country where nobody seemed to live. Just as he rubbed his eyes wide awake, they came to a forest of Christmas trees. At least they looked as if all they needed to make them that was for some one to fasten candles on their snow-laden boughs. Then the whistle blew the signal that meant that the train was about to stop, and Will'm scrambled up on his knees again, and they both looked out expectantly.
There was no station at this place of stopping. Only by special order from some high official did this train come to a halt here, so somebody of importance must be coming aboard. All they saw at first was a snowy road opening through the grove of Christmas trees, but standing in this road, a few rods from the train, was a sleigh drawn by two big, black horses. They had bells on their bridles which went ting-a-ling whenever they shook their heads or pawed the snow. The children could not see a trunk being put on to the baggage-car farther up the track, but they saw what happened in the delay.
to be continued Saturday...
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