by E. Nesbit
It seemed to her that they had been standing there for hours and hours, holding those silly little red flannel flags that no one would ever notice. The train wouldn’t care. It would go rushing by them and tear round the corner and go crashing into that awful mound. And everyone would be killed. Her hands grew very cold and trembled so that she could hardly hold the flag. And then came the distant rumble and hum of the metals, and a puff of white steam showed far away along the stretch of line.
“Stand firm,” said Peter, “and wave like mad! When it gets to that big furze bush step back, but go on waving! Don’t stand on the line, Bobbie!”
The train came rattling along very, very fast.
“They don’t see us! They won’t see us! It’s all no good!” cried Bobbie.
The two little flags on the line swayed as the nearing train shook and loosened the heaps of loose stones that held them up. One of them slowly leaned over and fell on the line. Bobbie jumped forward and caught it up, and waved it; her hands did not tremble now.
It seemed that the train came on as fast as ever. It was very near now.
“Keep off the line, you silly cuckoo!” said Peter, fiercely.
“It’s no good,” Bobbie said again.
“Stand back!” cried Peter, suddenly, and he dragged Phyllis back by the arm.
But Bobbie cried, “Not yet, not yet!” and waved her two flags right over the line. The front of the engine looked black and enormous. Its voice was loud and harsh.
“Oh, stop, stop, stop!” cried Bobbie. No one heard her. At least Peter and Phyllis didn’t, for the oncoming rush of the train covered the sound of her voice with a mountain of sound. But afterwards she used to wonder whether the engine itself had not heard her. It seemed almost as though it had—for it slackened swiftly, slackened and stopped, not twenty yards from the place where Bobbie’s two flags waved over the line. She saw the great black engine stop dead, but somehow she could not stop waving the flags. And when the driver and the fireman had got off the engine and Peter and Phyllis had gone to meet them and pour out their excited tale of the awful mound just round the corner, Bobbie still waved the flags but more and more feebly and jerkily.
When the others turned towards her she was lying across the line with her hands flung forward and still gripping the sticks of the little red flannel flags.
The engine-driver picked her up, carried her to the train, and laid her on the cushions of a first-class carriage.
“Gone right off in a faint,” he said, “poor little woman. And no wonder. I’ll just ’ave a look at this ’ere mound of yours, and then we’ll run you back to the station and get her seen to.”
It was horrible to see Bobbie lying so white and quiet, with her lips blue, and parted.
“I believe that’s what people look like when they’re dead,” whispered Phyllis.
“Don’t!” said Peter, sharply.
They sat by Bobbie on the blue cushions, and the train ran back. Before it reached their station Bobbie had sighed and opened her eyes, and rolled herself over and begun to cry. This cheered the others wonderfully. They had seen her cry before, but they had never seen her faint, nor anyone else, for the matter of that. They had not known what to do when she was fainting, but now she was only crying they could thump her on the back and tell her not to, just as they always did. And presently, when she stopped crying, they were able to laugh at her for being such a coward as to faint.
When the station was reached, the three were the heroes of an agitated meeting on the platform.
The praises they got for their “prompt action,” their “common sense,” their “ingenuity,” were enough to have turned anybody’s head. Phyllis enjoyed herself thoroughly. She had never been a real heroine before, and the feeling was delicious. Peter’s ears got very red. Yet he, too, enjoyed himself. Only Bobbie wished they all wouldn’t. She wanted to get away.
“You’ll hear from the Company about this, I expect,” said the Station Master.
Bobbie wished she might never hear of it again. She pulled at Peter’s jacket.
“Oh, come away, come away! I want to go home,” she said.
So they went. And as they went Station Master and Porter and guards and driver and fireman and passengers sent up a cheer.
“Oh, listen,” cried Phyllis; “that’s for us!”
“Yes,” said Peter. “I say, I am glad I thought about something red, and waving it.”
“How lucky we did put on our red flannel petticoats!” said Phyllis.
Bobbie said nothing. She was thinking of the horrible mound, and the trustful train rushing towards it.
“And it was us that saved them,” said Peter.
“How dreadful if they had all been killed!” said Phyllis; “wouldn’t it, Bobbie?”
“We never got any cherries, after all,” said Bobbie.
The others thought her rather heartless.
CHAPTER VII
For valour
I hope you don’t mind my telling you a good deal about Roberta. The fact is I am growing very fond of her. The more I observe her the more I love her. And I notice all sorts of things about her that I like.
For instance, she was quite oddly anxious to make other people happy. And she could keep a secret, a tolerably rare accomplishment. Also she had the power of silent sympathy. That sounds rather dull, I know, but it’s not so dull as it sounds. It just means that a person is able to know that you are unhappy, and to love you extra on that account, without bothering you by telling you all the time how sorry she is for you. That was what Bobbie was like. She knew that Mother was unhappy—and that Mother had not told her the reason. So she just loved Mother more and never said a single word that could let Mother know how earnestly her little girl wondered what Mother was unhappy about. This needs practice. It is not so easy as you might think.
Whatever happened—and all sorts of nice, pleasant ordinary things happened—such as picnics, games, and buns for tea, Bobbie always had these thoughts at the back of her mind. “Mother’s unhappy. Why? I don’t know. She doesn’t want me to know. I won’t try to find out. But she is unhappy. Why? I don’t know. She doesn’t—” and so on, repeating and repeating like a tune that you don’t know the stopping part of.
The Russian gentleman still took up a good deal of everybody’s thoughts. All the editors and secretaries of Societies and Members of Parliament had answered Mother’s letters as politely as they knew how; but none of them could tell where the wife and children of Mr. Szezcpansky would be likely to be. (Did I tell you that the Russian’s very Russian name was that?)
Bobbie had another quality which you will hear differently described by different people. Some of them call it interfering in other people’s business—and some call it “helping lame dogs over stiles,” and some call it “loving-kindness.” It just means trying to help people.
She racked her brains to think of some way of helping the Russian gentleman to find his wife and children. He had learned a few words of English now. He could say “Good morning,” and “Good night,” and “Please,” and “Thank you,” and “Pretty,” when the children brought him flowers, and “Ver’ good,” when they asked him how he had slept.
The way he smiled when he “said his English,” was, Bobbie felt, “just too sweet for anything.” She used to think of his face because she fancied it would help her to some way of helping him. But it did not. Yet his being there cheered her because she saw that it made Mother happier.
“She likes to have someone to be good to, even beside us,” said Bobbie. “And I know she hated to let him have Father’s clothes. But I suppose it ‘hurt nice,’ or she wouldn’t have.”
For many and many a night after the day when she and Peter and Phyllis had saved the train from wreck by waving their little red flannel flags, Bobbie used to wake screaming
and shivering, seeing again that horrible mound, and the poor, dear trustful engine rushing on towards it—just thinking that it was doing its swift duty, and that everything was clear and safe. And then a warm thrill of pleasure used to run through her at the remembrance of how she and Peter and Phyllis and the red flannel petticoats had really saved everybody.
One morning a letter came. It was addressed to Peter and Bobbie and Phyllis. They opened it with enthusiastic curiosity, for they did not often get letters.
The letter said:—
“Dear Sir, and Ladies,—
“It is proposed to make a small presentation to you, in commemoration of your prompt and courageous action in warning the train on the —— inst., and thus averting what must, humanly speaking, have been a terrible accident. The presentation will take place at the —— Station at three o’clock on the 30th inst., if this time and place will be convenient to you.
“Yours faithfully,
“Jabez Inglewood.
“Secretary, Great Northern and Southern Railway Co.”
There never had been a prouder moment in the lives of the three children. They rushed to Mother with the letter, and she also felt proud and said so, and this made the children happier than ever.
“But if the presentation is money, you must say, ‘Thank you, but we’d rather not take it,’” said Mother. “I’ll wash your Indian muslins at once,” she added. “You must look tidy on an occasion like this.”
“Phil and I can wash them,” said Bobbie, “if you’ll iron them, Mother.”
Washing is rather fun. I wonder whether you’ve ever done it? This particular washing took place in the back kitchen, which had a stone floor and a very big stone sink under its window.
“Let’s put the bath on the sink,” said Phyllis; “then we can pretend we’re out-of-doors washerwomen like Mother saw in France.”
“But they were washing in the cold river,” said Peter, his hands in his pockets, “not in hot water.”
“This is a hot river, then,” said Phyllis; “lend a hand with the bath, there’s a dear.”
“I should like to see a deer lending a hand,” said Peter, but he lent his.
“Now to rub and scrub and scrub and rub,” said Phyllis, hopping joyously about as Bobbie carefully carried the heavy kettle from the kitchen fire.
“Oh, no!” said Bobbie, greatly shocked; “you don’t rub muslin. You put the boiled soap in the hot water and make it all frothy-lathery—and then you shake the muslin and squeeze it, ever so gently, and all the dirt comes out. It’s only clumsy things like tablecloths and sheets that have to be rubbed.”
The lilac and the Gloire de Dijon roses outside the window swayed in the soft breeze.
“It’s a nice drying day—that’s one thing,” said Bobbie, feeling very grown up. “Oh, I do wonder what wonderful feelings we shall have when we wear the Indian muslin dresses!”
“Yes, so do I,” said Phyllis, shaking and squeezing the muslin in quite a professional manner.
“Now we squeeze out the soapy water. No—we mustn’t twist them—and then rinse them. I’ll hold them while you and Peter empty the bath and get clean water.”
“A presentation! That means presents,” said Peter, as his sisters, having duly washed the pegs and wiped the line, hung up the dresses to dry. “Whatever will it be?”
“It might be anything,” said Phyllis; “what I’ve always wanted is a Baby elephant—but I suppose they wouldn’t know that.”
“Suppose it was gold models of steam-engines?” said Bobbie.
“Or a big model of the scene of the prevented accident,” suggested Peter, “with a little model train, and dolls dressed like us and the engine-driver and fireman and passengers.”
“Do you like,” said Bobbie, doubtfully, drying her hands on the rough towel that hung on a roller at the back of the scullery door, “do you like us being rewarded for saving a train?”
“Yes, I do,” said Peter, downrightly; “and don’t you try to come it over us that you don’t like it, too. Because I know you do.”
“Yes,” said Bobbie, doubtfully, “I know I do. But oughtn’t we to be satisfied with just having done it, and not ask for anything more?”
“Who did ask for anything more, silly?” said her brother; “Victoria Cross soldiers don’t ask for it; but they’re glad enough to get it all the same. Perhaps it’ll be medals. Then, when I’m very old indeed, I shall show them to my grandchildren and say, ‘We only did our duty,’ and they’ll be awfully proud of me.”
“You have to be married,” warned Phyllis, “or you don’t have any grandchildren.”
“I suppose I shall have to be married some day,” said Peter, “but it will be an awful bother having her round all the time. I’d like to marry a lady who had trances, and only woke up once or twice a year.”
“Just to say you were the light of her life and then go to sleep again. Yes. That wouldn’t be bad,” said Bobbie.
“When I get married,” said Phyllis, “I shall want him to want me to be awake all the time, so that I can hear him say how nice I am.”
“I think it would be nice,” said Bobbie, “to marry someone very poor, and then you’d do all the work and he’d love you most frightfully, and see the blue wood smoke curling up among the trees from the domestic hearth as he came home from work every night. I say—we’ve got to answer that letter and say that the time and place will be convenient to us. There’s the soap, Peter. We’re both as clean as clean. That pink box of writing paper you had on your birthday, Phil.”
It took some time to arrange what should be said. Mother had gone back to her writing, and several sheets of pink paper with scalloped gilt edges and green four-leaved shamrocks in the corner were spoiled before the three had decided what to say. Then each made a copy and signed it with its own name.
The threefold letter ran:—
“Dear Mr. Jabez Inglewood,—
Thank you very much. We did not want to be rewarded but only to save the train, but we are glad you think so and thank you very much. The time and place you say will be quite convenient to us. Thank you very much.
“Your affecate little friend,”
Then came the name, and after it:—
“P.S. Thank you very much.”
“Washing is much easier than ironing,” said Bobbie, taking the clean dry dresses off the line. “I do love to see things come clean. Oh—I don’t know how we shall wait till it’s time to know what presentation they’re going to present!”
When at last—it seemed a very long time after—it was the day, the three children went down to the station at the proper time. And everything that happened was so odd that it seemed like a dream. The Station Master came out to meet them—in his best clothes, as Peter noticed at once—and led them into the waiting room where once they had played the advertisement game. It looked quite different now. A carpet had been put down—and there were pots of roses on the mantelpiece and on the window ledges—green branches stuck up, like holly and laurel are at Christmas, over the framed advertisement of Cook’s Tours and the Beauties of Devon and the Paris Lyons Railway. There were quite a number of people there besides the Porter—two or three ladies in smart dresses, and quite a crowd of gentlemen in high hats and frock coats—besides everybody who belonged to the station. They recognized several people who had been in the train on the red-flannel-petticoat day. Best of all their own old gentleman was there, and his coat and hat and collar seemed more than ever different from anyone else’s. He shook hands with them and then everybody sat down on chairs, and a gentleman in spectacles—they found out afterwards that he was the District Superintendent—began quite a long speech—very clever indeed. I am not going to write the speech down. First, because you would think it dull; and secondly, because it made all the children blush so, a
nd get so hot about the ears that I am quite anxious to get away from this part of the subject; and thirdly, because the gentleman took so many words to say what he had to say that I really haven’t time to write them down. He said all sorts of nice things about the children’s bravery and presence of mind, and when he had done he sat down, and everyone who was there clapped and said, “Hear, hear.”
And then the old gentleman got up and said things, too. It was very like a prize-giving. And then he called the children one by one, by their names, and gave each of them a beautiful gold watch and chain. And inside the watches were engraved after the name of the watch’s new owner:—
“From the Directors of the Northern and Southern Railway in grateful recognition of the courageous and prompt action which averted an accident on —— 1905.”
The watches were the most beautiful you can possibly imagine, and each one had a blue leather case to live in when it was at home.
“You must make a speech now and thank everyone for their kindness,” whispered the Station Master in Peter’s ear and pushed him forward. “Begin ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’” he added.
Each of the children had already said “Thank you,” quite properly.
“Oh, dear,” said Peter, but he did not resist the push.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said in a rather husky voice. Then there was a pause, and he heard his heart beating in his throat. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he went on with a rush, “it’s most awfully good of you, and we shall treasure the watches all our lives—but really we don’t deserve it because what we did wasn’t anything, really. At least, I mean it was awfully exciting, and what I mean to say—thank you all very, very much.”
The people clapped Peter more than they had done the District Superintendent, and then everybody shook hands with them, and as soon as politeness would let them, they got away, and tore up the hill to Three Chimneys with their watches in their hands.