What Necessity Knows Part 11

Some obstruction, he said, had fallen across the line. It was not much; the men would soon remove it. An Indian woman, who lived near, had heroically lit a fire, and thus stopped the train in time. There was no other train due upon the road for many hours. There was no danger. There _might_ have been a bad accident, but they had been providentially preserved.

His utterance greatly impressed the bystanders, for he was an important-looking gentleman; but long before he had finished speaking, the bright-eyed little mother had set her children into their various seats again, pulled their jackets close in front, rolled up their feet, patted their caps down on their heads, and, in fact, by a series of pokes and pulls, composed her family to sleep, or, at least, started them as far on the way to sleep as a family can be sent by such a method.

Quiet settled on the car again. Soon the train went on. Sophia Rexford, looking out, could dimly discern the black outline of wood and river. At length the window grew thicker and opaque. There was no sound of rain or hail, and yet something from without m.u.f.fled the gla.s.s. Sophia slept again.

When the dawn of day at length stole upon them she found that snow had been upon the gla.s.s and had melted. Snow lay thick on the ledges of the windows outside. Yet in that part of the country in which they now were there was none on the ground. They seemed to have run a race with a snowstorm in the night, and to have gained it for the nonce. But the sight struck her sadly. The winter, which she dreaded, was evidently on their track.

It was in the first grey hour of dawn that the train steamed into the station, which was the junction for Quebec, and pa.s.sengers bound for the English settlements south of that city were obliged to change.

For a few minutes before the train stopped the Rexford family had been booted and spurred, so to speak, ready for the transfer. Each young person was warmly b.u.t.toned up and tied into a warlike-looking m.u.f.fler.

Each had several packages in charge. A youth came in from the smoking-car and attached himself to them. When the train had come to a standstill the little French conductor was energetic in helping them to descend.

The family was very large, and, moreover, it was lively; its members were as hard to count as chickens of a brood. Sophia, holding the youngest child and the tickets, endeavoured to explain their number to the conductor.

"There are three children that go free," she said. "Then two little boys at half fare--that makes one ticket. Myself and three young ladies--make five tickets; my brother and father and mother--eight."

The sharp Frenchman looked dubious. "Three children free; two at half fare," he repeated. He was trying to see them all as he spoke.

Sophia repeated her count with terse severity.

"There was not another young lady?"

"Certainly not."

And Sophia was not a woman to be trifled with, so he punched the tickets and went back into his car.

Wooden platforms, a station hotel built of wood, innumerable lines of black rails on which freight trains stood idle, the whole place shut in by a high wooden fence--this was the prospect which met the eyes of the English travellers, and seen in the first struggling light of morning, in the bitter cold of a black frost, it was not a cheerful one. The Rexford family, however, were not considering the prospect; they were intent only on finding the warm pa.s.senger-car of the train that was to take them the rest of their journey, and which they had been a.s.sured would be waiting here to receive them.

This train, however, was not immediately to be seen, and, in the meantime, the broad platform, which was dusted over with dry frost crystals, was the scene of varied activities.

From the baggage-car of the train they had left, a great number of boxes and bags, labelled "Rexford," were being thrown down in a violent manner, which greatly distressed some of the girls and their father.

"Not that way. That is not the way. Don't you know that is not the way boxes should be handled?" shouted Captain Rexford sternly, and then, seeing that no one paid the slightest attention to his words, he was fain to turn away from the cause of his agitation. He took a brisk turn down the empty end of the platform, and stood there as a man might who felt that the many irritations of life were growing too much for his self-control.

The little boys found occupation because they observed that the white condensed vapour which came from their mouths with each breath bore great resemblance to the white steam a slowly moving engine was hissing forth. They therefore strutted in imitation of the great machine, emitting large puffs from their little warm mouths, and making the sound which a groom makes when he plies the curry-comb. The big brother was a.s.sisting in the unloading of a large carriage from an open van in the rear of the train, and Mrs. Rexford, neat, quick-moving, and excitable, after watching this operation for a few minutes and issuing several orders as to how it was to be done, moved off in lively search of the next train. She ran about, a few steps in each direction, looking at the various railway lines, and then accosted a tall, thin man who was standing still, doing nothing.

"Is the train for the Eastern Townships here? We were told it would be here waiting to receive us at daybreak. Is it here? Is it ready?"

Seeing from the man's face, as she had already seen from the empty tracks, that no such train was in readiness, she ran at one of the puffing and strutting children whose m.u.f.fler was loose, and tied it up again. Then, struck by another thought, she returned to the impa.s.sive man whom she had before addressed.

"This is really the _actual_ dawn, I suppose?" she asked, with an air of importance. "I have read that in some countries there is what is called a 'false dawn' that comes before the real one, you know."

Compelled now to speak, the man, who was a New Englander, took a small stick from between his teeth and said: "As far as I know, marm, this morning is genuine."

"Oh really"--with abatement of interest in her tone--"I thought perhaps there might be that sort of thing in Canada, you know--we certainly read of Northern Lights. Very strange that our train isn't here!"

The Yankee took the trouble to reply again, hardly moving a muscle of his face. "Keep a good heart, marm; it may come along yet, a-ridin' on these same Northern Lights."

"Riding on--? I beg your pardon--on what, did you say?" she asked eagerly.

At this the grey-eyed girl who had been frightened in the night plucked her by the sleeve and pulled her away. "Don't you see he's making fun of you, mamma?"

Besides the grey-eyed girl, who wore short frocks, there were two other girls in the first bloom of young-womanhood. One of these, having overheard the conversation, ran and told the other.

"Just because we happened to read of such a thing in that book of Asiatic travel! Isn't it absurd? And there's papa fuming at the other end of the station."

Both girls giggled.

"I know _quite_ well that people will think us all crazy," urged the first speaker. Then they laughed again, not unhappily.

"There's not a doubt of it," gasped the other.

These two girls were very much alike, but one wore a red cloak and the other a blue one. In spite of the fact that they were somewhat bloused and a little grimy, and their pretty little noses were now nipped red by the icy morning, they looked attractive as they stood, pressing their handkerchiefs to their mouths and bending with laughter. The extent of their mirth was proportioned to their youth and excitement, not to the circ.u.mstances which called it forth.

The train they had left now moved off. Most of the other pa.s.sengers who had alighted with them had taken themselves away in various directions, as travellers are apt to do, without any one else noticing exactly what had become of them.

Sophia, with the child in her arms, made her way to a mean waiting-room, and thither the children followed her. The mother, having at last ascertained the train would be ready in the course of time, soon came in also, and the father and brother, hearing it would not be ready for at least a quarter of an hour, went away to see the town.

There was a stove burning hotly in the small waiting-room. The only other furniture was a bench all round the wall. The family, that had entered somewhat tumultuously, almost filled it. There was only one other traveller there, a big girl with a shawl over her head and a bundle under her arm. When Sophia had come into the room alone with the baby, she had asked the girl one or two questions, and been answered civilly enough; but when the rest of the family followed, the girl relapsed into silence, and, after regarding them for a little while, she edged her way out of the room.

Mrs. Rexford, who in the excitement of change and bustle was always subject to being struck with ideas which would not have occurred to her mind at other times, suddenly remembered now that they were dependent upon the resources of the new country for domestic service, and that she had heard that no chance of securing a good servant must be lost, as they were very rare. Stating her thought hastily to Sophia, and darting to the narrow door without waiting for a reply, she stretched out her head with an ebullition of registry-office questions.

"My good girl!" she cried, "my good girl!"

The girl came back nearer the door and stood still.

"Do you happen to know of a girl about your age who can do kitchen work?"

"I don't know any one here. I'm travelling."

"But perhaps you would do for me yourself"--this half aside--"Can you make a fire, keep pots clean, and scour floors?"

"Yes." She did not express any interest in her a.s.sent.

"Where are you going? Would you not like to come with me and enter my service? I happen to be in need of just such a girl as you."

No answer.

"She doesn't understand, mamma," whispered the grey-eyed girl in a short frock, who, having wedged herself beside her mother in the narrow doorway, was the only one who could see or hear the colloquy. "Speak slower to the poor thing."

"Looks very stupid," commented Mrs. Rexford, hastily pulling in her head and speaking within the room. "But still, one must not lose a chance."

Then with head again outside, she continued, "Do you understand me, my good girl? What is your name?"

"Eliza White."

"That is a very good name"--encouragingly. "Where do you live?"

"I used to live a good bit over there, in the French country." She pointed with her arm in a certain direction, but as the points of the compa.s.s had no existence for Mrs. Rexford's newly immigrated intelligence, and as all parts of Canada, near and remote, seemed very much in the same place in her nebulous vision of geography, the little information the girl had given was of no interest to her and she took little note of it.