Part 4

The cars rattled along and the country grew greener and greener. Betty remembered it very well, although she had not seen it for four years, so long it was since she had been in Tideshead before. After seeing the stonewalled and thatched or tiled roofs of foreign countries, the wooden buildings of New England had a fragile look as if the wind and rain would soon spoil and scatter them. The villages and everything but some of the very oldest farms looked so new and so temporary that Betty Leicester was much surprised, knowing well that she was going through some of the very oldest New England towns. She had a delightful sense of getting home again, which would have pleased her loyal father, and indeed Betty herself believed that she could not be proud enough of her native land. Papa always said the faults of a young country were so much better than the faults of an old one. However, when the train crossed a bridge near a certain harbor on the way and the young traveler saw an English flag flying on a ship, it looked very pleasant and familiar.

The morning was growing hot, and the good seafarer in the seat beside our friend seemed to grow very uncomfortable. Her dress was too thick, and she was trying to hold on her bonnet with her chin, though it slipped back farther and farther. Somehow a great many women in the car looked very warm and wretched in thick woolen gowns and unsteady bonnets. Nobody looked as if she were out on a pleasant holiday except one neighbor, a brisk little person with a canary bird and an Indian basket, out of which she now and then let a kitten's head appear, long enough to be patted and then tucked back again.

Betty's companion caught sight of this smiling neighbor after a time and expressed herself as surprised that anybody should take the trouble to cart a kitten from town to town, when there were two to every empty saucer already. Betty laughed and supposed that she didn't like cats, and was answered gruffly that they were well enough in their place. It was one of our friend's griefs that she never was sure of being long enough in one place to keep a kitten of her own, but the pleasant thought came that she was almost sure to find some at Aunt Barbara's where she was going.

It was not time to feel hungry, but Betty caught sight of a paper box which the waiter had brought to the carriage just as she was leaving the hotel. She was having a hot and dusty search under the car-seat for the sailor woman's purse, which had suddenly gone overboard from the upper deck of her wide lap, but it was found at last, and Betty produced the luncheon-box too and opened it. Her new friend looked on with deep interest. "I'm only goin's far as Newburyport," she explained eagerly, "so I'm not provided."

"Papa knew that I should be hungry by noon," said Betty. "We always try not to get too hungry when we are traveling because one gets so much more tired. I always carry some chocolate in my bag."

"I expect you've had sights of experience. You ain't be'n kep' short, that's plain. They ain't many young gals looks so rugged. Enjoy good health, dear, don't ye?" which Betty answered with enthusiasm.

The luncheon looked very inviting and Betty offered a share most hospitably, and in spite of its only being a quarter before eleven when the feast began, the chicken sandwiches entirely disappeared. There were only four, and half a dozen small sponge-cakes which proved to be somewhat dry and unattractive.

"I only laid in a light breakfast," apologized Betty's guest. "I'm obliged to you, I'm sure, but then I wa' n't nigh so hungry as when I got adrift once, in an open boat, for two days and a night, and they give me up"--

But at this moment the train man shouted "Newburyport," as if there were not a minute to be lost, and the good soul gathered her possessions in a great hurry, dropping her purse again twice, and letting fall bits of broken sentences with it from which Betty could gather only "The fog come in," and "coast o' France," and then, as they said good-by, "'t was so divertin' ridin' along that I took no note of stoppin'." After they had parted affectionately, she stood for a minute or two at the door of the still moving train, nodding and bobbing her kind old head at her young fellow-passenger whenever they caught each other's eye. Betty was sorry to lose this new friend so soon, and felt more lonely than ever. She wished that they had known each other's names, and especially that there had been time to hear the whole of the boat story.

Now that there was no one else in the car seat it seemed to be a good time to look over some things in the pretty London traveling bag, which had been pushed under its owner's feet until then. Betty found a small bit of chocolate for herself by way of dessert to the early luncheon, and made an entry in a tidy little account book which she meant to keep carefully until she should be with papa again. It was a very interesting bag, with a dressing-case fitted into it and a writing case, all furnished with glass and ivory and silver fittings and yet very plain, and nice, and convenient. Betty's dear friend, Mrs. Duncan, had given it to her that very spring, before she thought of coming to America, and on the voyage it had been worth its weight in gold. Out of long experience the young traveler had learned not to burden herself with too many things, but all her belongings had some pleasant associations: her button-hook was bought in Amsterdam, and a queer little silver box for buttons came from a village very far north in Norway, while a useful jackknife had been found in Spain, although it bore J. Crookes of Sheffield's name on the haft. Somehow the traveling bag itself brought up Mrs. Duncan's dear face, and Betty's eyes glistened with tears for one moment. The Duncan girls were her best friends, and she had had lessons with them for many months at a time in the last few years, so they had the strong bond in friendship of having worked as well as played together. But Mrs. Duncan had been very motherly and dear to our friend, and just now seemed nearer and more helpful than ever. The train whistled along and the homesick feeling soon passed, though Betty remembered that Mrs. Duncan had said once that wherever you may put two persons one is always hostess and the other always guest, either from circumstances alone or from their different natures, and they must be careful about their duties to each other. Betty had not quite understood this when she heard it said, though the words had stayed in her mind. Now the meaning flashed clearly into her thought, and she was pleased to think that she had just now been the one who knew most about traveling. She wished so much that she could have been of more use to the old lady, but after all she seemed to have a good little journey, and Betty hoped that she could remember all about this droll companion when she was writing, at her own journey's end, to papa.

II.

THE PACKET BOAT.

THE day was one of the best days in June, with warm sunshine and a cool breeze from the east, for when Betty Leicester stepped from a hot car to the station platform in Riverport the air had a delicious sea-flavor. She wondered for a moment what this flavor was like, and then thought of a salt oyster. She was hungry and tired, the journey had been longer than she expected, and, as she made her way slowly through the crowded station and was pushed about by people who were hurrying out of or into the train, she felt unusually disturbed and lonely. Betty had traveled far and wide for a girl of fifteen, but she had seldom been alone, and was used to taking care of other people. Papa himself was very apt to forget important minor details, and she had learned out of her loving young heart to remember them, and was not without high ambitions to make their journeys as comfortable as possible. Still, she and her father had almost always been together, and Betty wondered if it had not after all been foolish to make a certain decision which involved not seeing him again until a great many weeks had gone by.

The cars moved away and the young traveler went to the ticket-office to ask about the Tideshead train. The ticket-agent looked at her with a smile.

"Train's gone half an hour ago!" he said, as if he were telling Betty some good news. "There'll be another one at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, and the express goes, same as to-day, at half past one. I suppose you want to go to Tideshead town; this road only goes to the junction and then there's a stage, you know." He looked at Betty doubtfully and as if he expected an instant decision on her part as to what she meant to do next.

"I knew that there was a stage," she answered, feeling a little alarmed, but hoping that she did not show it. "The time-table said there was a train to meet this"--

"Oh, that train is an express now and doesn't stop. Everything's got to be sacrificed to speed."

The ticket-agent had turned his back and was looking over some papers and grumbling to himself, so that Betty could no longer hear what he was pleased to say. As she left the window an elderly man, whose face was very familiar, was standing in the doorway.

"Well, ma'am, you an' I 'pear to have got left. Tideshead, you said, if I rightly understood?"

"Perhaps there is somebody who would drive us there," said Betty. She never had been called ma'am before, and it was most surprising. "It isn't a great many miles, is it?"

"No, no!" said the new acquaintance. "I was in considerable of a hurry to get home, but 't isn't so bad as you think. We can go right up on the packet, up river, you know; get there by supper-time; the wind's hauling round into the east a little. I understood you to speak about getting to Tideshead?"

"Yes," said Betty, gratefully.

"Got a trunk, I expect. Well, I'll go out and look round for Asa Chick and his han'cart, and we'll make for the wharf as quick as we can. You may step this way."

Betty "stepped" gladly, and Asa Chick and the handcart soon led the way riverward through the pleasant old-fashioned streets of Riverport. Her new friend pointed out one or two landmarks as they hurried along, for, strange to say, although a sea-captain, he was not sure whether the tide turned at half past two or at half past three. When they came to the river-side, however, the packet-boat was still made fast to the pier, and nothing showed signs of her immediate departure.

"It is always a good thing to be in time," said the captain, who found himself much too warm and nearly out of breath. "Now, we've got a good hour to wait. Like to go right aboard, my dear?"

Betty paid Asa Chick, and then turned to see the packet. It was a queer, heavy-looking craft, with a short, thick mast and high, pointed lateen-sail, half unfurled and dropping in heavy pocket-like loops. There was a dark low cabin and a long deck; a very old man and a fat, yellow dog seemed to be the whole ship's company. The old man was smoking a pipe and took no notice of anything, but the dog rose slowly to his feet and came wagging his tail and looking up at the new passenger.

"I do' know but I'll coast round up into the town a little," said the captain. "'T ain't no use asking old Mr. Plunkett there any questions, he's deef as a ha'dick."

"Will my trunk be safe?" asked Betty; to which the captain answered that he would put it right aboard for her. It was not a very heavy trunk, but the captain managed it beautifully, and put Betty's hand-bag and wrap into the dark cabin. Old Plunkett nodded as he saw this done, and the captain said again that Betty might feel perfectly safe about everything; but, for all that, she refused to take a walk in order to see what was going on in the town, as she was kindly invited to do. She went a short distance by herself, however, and came first to a bakery, where she bought some buns, not so good as the English ones, but still very good buns indeed, and two apples, which the baker's wife told her had grown in her own garden. You could see the tree out of the back window, by which the hospitable woman had left her sewing, and they were, indeed, well-kept and delicious apples for that late season of the year. Betty lingered for some minutes in the pleasant shop. She was very hungry, and the buns were all the better for that. She looked through a door and saw the oven, but the baking was all done for the day. The baker himself was out in his cart; he had just gone up to Tideshead. Here was another way in which one might have gone to Tideshead by land; it would have been good fun to go on the baker's cart and stop in the farm-house yards and see everybody; but on the whole there was more adventure in going by water. Papa had always told Betty that the river was beautiful. She did not remember much about it herself, but this would be a fine way of getting a first look at so large a part of the great stream.