by A. A. Milne
“Well, who’ll we ask?” demanded Bess.
“The baggage-man, of course,” said Nan, jumping up. “I believe he’s hungry, too.”
“Who? the baggage-man?” giggled Bess.
“The puppy, of course,” returned Nan.
“We’ll feed him some of our pie,” suggested Bess.
“He ought to have some warm milk,” Nan said seriously.
“Oh, indeed!” exclaimed her chum. “Well, Nan Sherwood, I don’t think anybody’s thought to milk the cow this morning.”
“Oh, be good, Bess,” Nan admonished her. The pup began to whimper again. “Come on; let’s find the man.”
The girls ventured farther forward. When they opened the door of the car at that end, Bess screamed outright.
“Why! it’s a tunnel, Nan,” she ejaculated. “Do you see?”
“What a lot of snow there must be above us,” her chum rejoined, with gravity.
“Why, this is just the greatest adventure that ever happened,” Bess continued. “The men have tunneled through the drift from one car to the other. I wonder how thick the roof is, Nan? Suppose it falls on us!”
“Not likely,” responded her chum, and she stepped confidently out upon the platform. The door of the forward car stuck and after a moment somebody came and slid it back a crack.
“Hullo, young ladies!” exclaimed the brakeman, who looked out. “What do you want forward, here?”
“We want to speak to the baggage-man, please,” Nan said promptly.
“Hey, Jim!” shouted the brakeman. “Here’s a couple of ladies to see you. I bet they’ve got something to eat in their trunks and want to open them.”
There was a laugh in chorus from the crew in the forward baggage and express car. Then an older man came and asked the girls what they wished. Bess had grown suddenly bashful, so it was Nan who asked about the dog.
“The poor little thing should be released from that crate,” she told the man. “And I believe he’s hungry.”
“I reckon you’re right, Miss,” said the baggage-man. “I gave him part of my coffee this morning; but I reckon that’s not very satisfying to a dog.”
“He should have some milk,” Nan announced decidedly.
“Ya— as?” drawled the baggage-man. He had come into the car with the girls and now looked down at the fretting puppy. “Ya— as,” he repeated; “but where are you going to get milk?”
“From the so-called cow-tree,” said Bess soberly, “which is found quite commonly in the jungles of Brazil. You score the bark and the wood immediately beneath it with an axe, or machette, insert a sliver of clean wood, and the milky sap trickles forth into your cup— ”
“How ridiculous!” interposed Nan, while the baggage-man burst into appreciative laughter.
“Well,” said Bess, “when folks are cast away like us, don’t they always find the most wonderful things all about them— right to their hands, as it were?”
“Like a cow-tree in a baggage car?” said Nan, with disgust.
“Well! how do you propose to find milk here?” demanded her chum.
“Why,” said Nan, with assurance, “I’d look through the express matter and see if there wasn’t a case of canned milk going somewhere— ”
“Great! Hurrah for our Nan!” broke in Bess Harley, in admiration. “Who’d ever have thought of that?”
“But we couldn’t do that, Miss,” said the baggage-man, scratching his head. “We’d get into trouble with the company.”
“So the poor dog must starve,” said Bess, saucily.
“Guess he’ll have to take his chance with the rest of us,” said the man.
“Oh! You don’t mean we’re all in danger of starvation?” gasped Bess, upon whose mind this possibility had not dawned before.
“Well— ” said the man, and then stopped.
“They’ll come and dig us out, won’t they?” demanded Bess.
“Oh, yes.”
“Then we won’t starve,” she said, with satisfaction.
But Nan did not comment upon this at all. She only said, with confidence:
“Of course you can let this poor doggy out of the cage and we will be good to him.”
“Well, Miss, that altogether depends upon the conductor, you know. It’s against the rules for a dog to be taken into a passenger coach.”
“I do think,” cried Bess, “that this is the very meanest railroad that ever was. I am sure that Linda Riggs’ father owns it. To keep a poor, dear, little dog like that, freezing and starving, in an old baggage car.”
“Do you know President Riggs, Miss?” interrupted the baggage-man.
“Why— ” began Bess, but her chum interposed before she could go further.
“We know Mr. Riggs’ daughter very well. She goes to school where we do, at Lakeview Hall. She was on this train till it was split at the Junction, last evening.”
“Well, indeed, Miss, you tell that to Mr. Carter. If you are friends of Mr. Riggs’ daughter, maybe he’ll stretch a point and let you take the dog into the Pullman. I don’t suppose anybody will object at a time like this.”
“How could you, Nan?” demanded Bess, in a whisper. “Playing up Linda Riggs’ name for a favor?”
“Not for ourselves, no, indeed!” returned Nan, in the same low tone. “But for the poor doggy, yes.”
“Say! I wonder what she’d say if she knew?”
“Something mean, of course,” replied Nan, calmly. “But we’ll save that poor dog if we can. Come on and find this Conductor Carter.”
They left the puppy yelping after them as they returned to the Pullman. The cars felt colder now and the girls heard many complaints as they walked through to the rear. The conductor, the porter said, had gone back into the smoking car. That car was between the Pullman and the day coaches.
When Nan rather timidly opened the door of the smoking car a burst of sound rushed out, almost startling in its volume— piercing cries of children, shrill tones of women’s voices, the guttural scolding of men, the expostulations of the conductor himself, who had a group of complainants about him, and the thunderous snoring of a fat man in the nearest seat, who slept with his feet cocked up on another seat and a handkerchief over his face.
“Goodness!” gasped Bess, pulling back. “Let’s not go in. It’s a bear garden.”
“Why, I don’t understand it,” murmured Nan. “Women and children in the smoker? Whoever heard the like?”
“They’ve turned off the heat in the other two cars and made us all come in here, lady,” explained a little dark-haired and dark-eyed woman who sat in a seat near the door. “They tell us there is not much coal, and they cannot heat so many cars.”
She spoke without complaint, in the tone of resignation so common among the peasantry of Europe, but heard in North America from but two people— the French Canadian and the peon of Mexico. Nan had seen so many of the former people in the Big Woods of Upper Michigan the summer before, that she was sure this poor woman was a “Canuck.” Upon her lap lay a delicate, whimpering, little boy of about two years.
“What is the matter with the poor little fellow, madam?” asked Nan, compassionately.
“With my little Pierre, mademoiselle?” returned the woman.
“Yes,” said Nan.
“He cries for food, mademoiselle,” said the woman simply. “He has eaten nothing since we left the Grand Gap yesterday at three o’clock; except that the good conductor gave us a drink of coffee this morning. And his mother has nothing to give her poor Pierre to eat. It is sad, is it not?”
A Serious Problem
The chums from Tillbury looked at each other in awed amazement. Nothing just like this had ever come to their knowledge before. The healthy desire of a vigorous appetite for food was one thing; but this child’s whimpering need and its mother’s patient endurance of her own lack of food for nearly twenty-four hours, shook the two girls greatly.
“Why, the poor little fellow!” gasped Nan, and sank to her knees to
place her cheek against the pale one of the little French boy.
“They— they’re starving!” choked Bess Harley.
The woman seemed astonished by the emotion displayed by these two schoolgirls. She looked from Nan to Bess in rather a frightened way.
“Monsieur, the conductor, say it cannot ver’ well be help’,” she murmured. “It is the snow; it haf overtaken us.”
“It just can be helped!” cried Bess, suddenly, and she whirled and fairly ran forward into the chair car. Nan did not notice her chum’s departure at the moment. The baby had seized her finger and was smiling at her. Such a pretty little fellow, but so weak and ill in appearance.
“Oh, madame!” Nan cried in her best French, “is it not terrible? We may be here for hours.”
“As the good God wills,” said the woman, patiently. “We cannot devise or shape Fate, mademoiselle.”
Nan stood up and shook her head, saying vigorously, and in her own tongue, for she was too much moved to remember Mademoiselle Loro’s teaching:
“But we need not accept Fate’s determination as final, I am sure! There is a good God, as you say, madam. This child must have food, and— ”
At the moment Bess rushed in carrying the paste-board box containing the remains of their lunch. “Here!” she cried, dramatically. “Give the poor little fellow this.”
“Oh, little ladies!” responded the woman, “have a care. You will have need of this food yourselves.”
“No, no!” cried Bess, the impetuous. “We are stuffed to repletion. Aren’t we, Nan?”
“We have certainly eaten much more recently than madam and the little one,” agreed Nan, heartily.
The woman opened the box. The child sat up with a crow of delight. The mother gave him one of the stale crullers, and he began gnawing on it with all the gusto of a hungry dog on a bone.
“Take something yourself, madam,” commanded Nan. “And more for the little fellow.”
“Let ’em have it all, Nan,” whispered the impulsive Bess. “Goodness! we can get on somehow.”
But Nan was more observant than her chum. There were other children in the car besides this little fellow. In fact, in the seat but one behind the French woman and her baby, a girl of six or seven years was clinging to the seat-back and staring with hungry eyes at the broken food in the box.
“Gracious!” gasped Bess, seeing this little one when Nan had nudged her and pointed. “Gracious! that’s the picture of Famine, herself.”
She seized one of the greasy little pies and thrust it into the child’s hands. The latter began devouring it eagerly. Bess saw other hungry mouths open and eager hands outstretched.
“Oh, Nan!” she almost sobbed. “We’ve got to give them all some. All the poor little children!”
Her chum did not try to curb Bess Harley’s generosity. There was not much of the food left, so there was no danger of over-feeding any of the small children who shared in the generosity of the chums. But when the last crumb was gone they found the conductor at their elbows.
“Well, girls!” he exclaimed grimly. “Now you’ve done it, haven’t you?”
“Done what, sir?” asked Bess, rather startled.
“You’ve given away all your own lunch. What did I tell you? I warned you to take care of it.”
“Oh, sir!” cried Nan. “We couldn’t have eaten it, knowing that these little folks were so hungry.”
“No, indeed!” agreed Bess.
“If you had remained in your own car,” the conductor said, “you would have known nothing about these poor kiddies.”
“Well, I’m glad we did find out about ’em before we ate our lunch all up,” declared Nan.
“Why, I’d like to know, Miss?” asked the man.
“It would have lain heavily on our consciences— ”
“And surely injured our digestions,” giggled Bess. “That pie was something awful.”
“Well, it’s all gone now, and you have nothing.”
“Oh, that’s not the worst,” cried Bess, suddenly. “Oh, Nan!” and she clasped her gloved hands tragically.
“What is it now?” asked her chum.
“The poor little dog! He won’t have even railroad pie to eat.”
“What dog is this?” demanded the conductor.
“Oh!” cried Nan. “Are you Mr. Carter?”
“Yes, I am, Miss. But this dog?”
“Is in the baggage car,” Nan said eagerly. “And he’s so cold and hungry and lonesome. He’s just crying his heart out.”
“He is?”
“Won’t you let us take him into our car where it is warmer and take care of him?”
“That nuisance of a pup?” demanded the conductor, yet with twinkling eyes that belied his gruffness. “I know he’s yapping his little head off.”
“Then let us have him, sir, do!” begged Nan earnestly.
“Take him into the Pullman, you mean?”
“Yes, sir, we’ll take the best care of him,” promised Nan.
“Against the rules!” declared the conductor, briskly.
“But rules ought to be broken at times,” urged Nan. “For instance, can’t they be relaxed when folks are cast away on desert islands?”
“Oh, ho!” chuckled the conductor. “I see the point, Miss. But the captain of the ship must maintain discipline, just the same, on the desert island as aboard ship.”
“I s’pose you’ve got to enforce the rule against passengers riding on the platform, too, even if we are stuck in a snowdrift?” Bess said a little crossly. They had come out into the vestibule, and she was cold.
The conductor broke into open laughter at this; but Nan was serious.
“Suppose anything happens to the poor little fellow?” she fumed. “He may get cold. And he certainly will starve.”
“Have you anything more in the line of food to give away?” demanded the conductor.
“Not a crumb,” sighed Bess. “By the time the cannibals arrive at this desert island we’ll all be too thin to tempt them to a banquet.”
“But there may be something on the train with which to feed that poor doggie,” insisted Nan.
“If you mean in the crew’s kettles,” said the conductor, “I can assure you, young lady, there is nothing. This crew usually eats at the end of the division. It’s not like a freight train crew. We’d be a whole lot better off right now,” added the conductor, reflectively, “if we had a caboose attached to the end of this train. We’d stand a chance of rustling up some grub for all these hungry people.”
“Oh, dear!” gasped Bess. “Do you s’pose we’re going to be hungry long?”
“They say one doesn’t notice it much after about eight days,” her chum said, chuckling.
“Ugh!” shivered Bess, “I don’t much care for your kind of humor, Nan Sherwood.”
The conductor suddenly glanced at Nan more keenly and asked, “Are you Nancy Sherwood, Miss?”
“Why, yes, sir.”
“And you go to school somewhere upon the shore of Lake Huron?” he pursued.
“Why, yes, sir.”
“We go to Lakeview Hall. And we know Linda Riggs,” blurted out Bess, remembering what the baggage-man had advised them to say to the conductor.
“Oh, indeed?” said Mr. Carter; but his interest remained fixed on Nan. “You didn’t go to school last September over this division, did you?” he asked.
“No, sir. We went from Chicago,” replied the wondering Nan.
“Your train was broke in two at the Junction to put in a car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what did you do at the Junction?” asked the conductor, quickly.
“Oh, I know!” cried Bess, as her chum hesitated. “She got off the train and killed a big rattlesnake that was just going to bite a little girl— yes, you did, Nan Sherwood!”
“You’re the girl, Miss!” declared Mr. Carter, drawing out his notebook and pencil. “There have been some inquiries made for you.”
“Mercy
!” ejaculated Nan. “I don’t want to hear anything more about that old snake.”
The conductor laughed. “I fancy you won’t hear anything unpleasant about the snake,” he said. “Where do you live, Nancy Sherwood?”
“I live at Tillbury,” Nan said. “But I sha’n’t be home much this vacation.”
“Where will you be, then, about the first of the year?”
“I’ll tell you,” Bess cried briskly, and she gave Mr. Carter Mr. Mason’s address in Chicago.
The conductor wrote it down carefully in his notebook. Nan was impatient.
“Can’t you find something among the express packages to help us out, sir?” she asked. “Canned goods. For instance, a case of canned milk?”
“We’ll see, Miss,” said the conductor, starting forward again. “At any rate, I’ll let you two girls have the dog.”
The Fat Man Interposes
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.