HER DANGER SIGNAL.
BY EMMA C. HEWITT.
She did—I am sorry to record it, but she did—Letty Bascombe salted her pie-crust with a great, big tear.
Not that she had none of the other salt, nor that she intended to do it, but, all of a sudden, a big tear, oh, as big as the end of your thumb, if you are a little, little girl, ran zigzag across her cheek down to her chin, and, before she could wipe it off, a sudden, sharp sob took her unawares and, plump, right into the pastry, went this big fat tear. Of course, if you are even a little girl you must know that it is as useless to hunt for tears in pie-crust as it is to "hunt for a needle in a hay-stack." So Letty did not even try to recover her lost property. But it had one good effect, it made her laugh, and, between you and me (I tell this to you as a secret), Letty, like every other girl, little or big, fat or thin, was much pleasanter to look upon when she smiled than when she cried. But she didn't smile for that. Oh, dear, no. She smiled because she couldn't help it. She was a good-natured, sweet-tempered little puss, most times, and possessed of a very sunny disposition. "Why did she salt her pie-crust with tears, then?" I hear you ask. Ah, "Why?" And wait till I tell you. The most curious part of it all was that it was a Thanksgiving crust. There, now. The worst is out. A common, every-day, week-a-day pie, or even a Sunday pie, would be bad enough, but a Thanksgiving pie of all things. Why, everybody is happy at Thanksgiving.
Well, not quite everybody, it seems, because if that was so Letty wouldn't be crying.
Now let me tell you why poor Letty Bascombe, with her sunny temper, cried on this day while she was making pies.
You see, she was only fifteen, and when one is fifteen, and there is fun going on that one can't be in, it is very trying, to say the least. Not that tears help it the least in the world, no, indeed. In fact, tears at such times always make matters worse.
Well, she was only fifteen, as I was saying, and, instead of going with the family into town, she had to stay home and make pies.
Now the family were no relation to her. She was only Mrs. Mason's "help." Eighteen months ago Letty's mother (a widow) had died. Her brother had gone away off to a large city, and she had come to Mrs. Mason's to live. Mrs. Mason was as kind as she could be to her, but you know one must feel "blue" at times when one has lost all but one relative in the world, and that one is a dear brother who is way, way off, even if one is surrounded by the kindest friends.
So now, tell me, don't you think Letty had something to shed tears about?
"I j-just c-can't help it. I'm not one bit 'thankful' this Thanksgiving, and I'm not going to pretend I am. So there. And here I am making nasty pies, when everybody else has gone to town having a good time. No, I'm not one bit thankful, so there, and I feel as if turkey and cranberries and pumpkin pie would choke me."
But after Letty "had her cry out" she felt better, and in a little while her nimble fingers had finished her work and she was ready for a little amusement. This amusement she concluded to find by taking a little walk to the end of the garden. The garden ended abruptly in a ravine, and it was a source of unfailing delight to go down there and, from a secure position, see the trains go thundering by.
In fifteen minutes the train would be along and then she would go back. Idly gazing down from her secure height, her eye was suddenly caught by something creeping along the ground. Letty's keen sight at once decided this to be a man—a man with a log in his hand. This log he carefully adjusted across the track.
"What a very curious—" began Letty. But her exclamation was cut short by the awful intuition that the man meant to wreck the on-coming train.
All thought of private sorrow fled in an instant. What could she do? What must she do, for save the train she must, of course. Who else was there to do it? And oh, such a little time to do it in. To go around by the path would take a half-hour. To climb down the side of the ravine would be madness. Suddenly her mind was illuminated. Yes, she could do that, and like the wind she was up at the house and back again, only this time she steered for a spot a hundred rods up, just the other side of the curve.
In a trice she had whipped off her scarlet balmoral, the balmoral she hated so, and had attached to it one end of the hundred feet of rope she had brought from the house.
Could she do it? Could she crawl out on that branch there and hold that danger signal down in front of the train?
She shuddered and covered her face with her hands. O, no, no, she never could do it. Suppose she should fall off or the limb break. But she wouldn't fall, she mustn't fall. Hark! There is the engine. If she is going to save the train there is no time for further delay. With a prayer for guidance and protection, slowly, oh so slowly, that it seemed hours before she got there, Letty crawled out to the branch and dangled below her, across the track, her flag of danger. She could not see what was going on, because she dared not look down. So, looking constantly up (and, children, believe me, "looking up" is one of the best things you can do when in danger or trouble), and sending a silent wordless petition for the safety of the train, Letty held her precarious post. Hark, it is slowing up. Her balmoral has been seen and the train is saved. The tension over, she cautiously turned and crawled slowly back to land, and then dropped in a dead faint. Recovering, however, she went slowly up to the house, trembling and sick and shivering with the cold from the loss of the warm skirt hanging on the clothes-line down in the ravine.
Relaxed and limp she sat down in the big rocker before the kitchen stove, a confused mass of thoughts racing through her head. Dazed and excited, she hardly knew how time was passing until she heard the sound of wheels.
"O, Letty, the funniest thing—" shouted Laura, bursting into the kitchen.
"Wait, let me tell," interrupted Jamie. "Why, Letty, somebody's hung—"
"Somebody hung," exclaimed Letty, in horror. "Why, Laura Mason, how dare you say that was funny?"
"I didn't—" began Laura, indignantly, but here Mrs. Mason interfered with a "Sh-sh-sh, children, mercy, goodness, you nearly drive me wild. Here. Laura, take mother's bonnet and shawl up-stairs.
"Here, Jamie, take my boots and bring me my slippers. I'm that tired I don't know what to do with myself. Goodness, but it feels good to get home. The strangest thing's happened, Letty. The afternoon express was coming into town this afternoon, and, when it was about two miles out, all of a sudden the engineer saw a red flannel petticoat hanging right down in the middle of the track, hanging by a clothes-line, mind, from the limb of a tree. He thought at first it was a joke, but changed his mind and thought he'd look further, and would you believe it, he found a great, big log across the track. If the train had come on that I guess there'd been more grief than Thanksgiving in this neighborhood to-morrow."
Mrs. Mason had said all this along in one steady strain, while she was walking round the room putting away her parcels.
Getting no response, she turned to look at Letty for the first time. "Why goodness! The girl has fainted. What on earth do you suppose is the matter with her?
"Jamie, come quick. Get me some water.
"There," when the restorative had had the desired effect. "Why, what ailed you, Letty? You weren't sick when I went away. Bless me! I hope you ain't going to be sick, and such a surprise as we've got for you, too, out in the barn. But there. If that isn't just like me. I didn't mean to tell you yet."
"Why, mother, mother," exclaimed Father Mason excitedly as he rushed into the room. "Somebody's just come from the village with this," flourishing Letty's skirt wildly around, "and they say the train was stopped right back of our house."
"For the land's sake, Job! Well, if that ain't our Letty's red balmoral. How did it—is that the—Letty, was it you?" she finished up rather disjointedly.
Letty nodded, unable to speak just then.
"Well, who'd 'a' thought it. So you saved the train! Do tell us all about it."
"Mother, don't you think we'd better wait a bit till she looks a mite stronger," suggested kind-hearted Job Mason.
"Well, I don't know but you're right, but I'm clean beat out. Don't you think, Job, that we might bring Letty's surprise—but there's the surprise walking in from the barn of itself. Tired of waiting, likely as not."
"Yes, Letty," broke in Laurie. "Did you know your brother had come home and that you saved his life this afternoon with that old red skirt of yours?" So the mischief was out at last, and though the excitement and everything nearly killed Letty, it didn't quite, or I don't think I would have undertaken to tell this story. I don't like sad Thanksgiving stories. Not that there aren't any; I only say I don't like them, that's all.
Well, sitting in her brother's lap—(what, fifteen years old?)—yes, sitting in her brother's lap, she had to tell over and over again all she thought and felt that afternoon, and to hear over and over again what a dreadful time they had keeping the secret from her. How they were so afraid that she would find out that they expected to meet her brother—how he had been so anxious that she should not be told lest by some accident he shouldn't arrive, and then she would be bitterly disappointed and her Thanksgiving spoiled.
Accident! Letty shuddered each time that they reached that part of the story, for she thought how nearly the accident had happened, and as she knelt to say her prayers that night it was with a penitent heart that she remembered how she had felt in the morning, and she had added fervently, "Dear Lord, I thank Thee for this beautiful Thanksgiving."