"Your mother and I don't get along, somehow," Mrs. Hammond said, as we stood together on the gravel path. The flowers were out in bloom all around us—roses, and pinks, and sweet-williams, not in patches of colour, but all mixed up together. Father took such a pride in his garden; the flowers were his friends and his pets. But we were not thinking about flowers just then. "I don't know why, I'm sure," she went on, "only I don't mean any harm. Lots of people say that, and I'm sure I don't know what the sense of it is; so I suppose the words are silly. But, dear me, one can't be always stopping to weigh every word."
I remember that the text about "every idle word" having to be accounted for, rushed straight into my mind.
"But, of course, your mother likes to know you are admired, Kitty," she went on.
"I don't know. I don't think she does," I said.
"Oh, nonsense! She must. Any mother does. She's only afraid of your being hurt, and it's odd she should, such a humble little thing as you are. If you were like some girls, now! But there, you're a pretty little dear, and the beauty of the village, no matter what anybody says. And now, I've got to be off, and not waste any more time."
I did not go in directly. It was almost time for the afternoon express to go by, and I was not in a hurry for what mother might say. Of course, I knew that Mrs. Hammond was not wise to speak to me as she did; but, all the same, I was pleased, and I did not want to be told that Mrs. Hammond was a silly woman, not worth listening to. So I stayed out a little, lingering about in the sunshine. Mother was busy, and I ought to have been helping her; but I never was fond of work, and I knew she would not mind my having a little more fresh air.
The afternoon express was a favourite of mine. I could not have told why, but it always was, and always had been. It did not stop at our station; none of the fast trains did. I always liked to watch it rushing past, and making a whirl of dust and sticks, and a grand commotion. Ever since I was a little child I always had liked to watch that express, and somehow I never grew tired of it. They used to laugh at my fancy. Father and the men got so used to the trains going by that they didn't even hear them, except when there was need of attending to signals. And when I was busy, I did not hear the other trains either. I never had time to attend to the morning express. The afternoon express came at a time when I was pretty free, and as I say, I had a funny liking for it, almost as if it was a friend of mine.
So I went along the gravel path of our garden that ran parallel with the line, climbing up the gentle slope to the level top of the embankment. The line curved away from our station both ways. The express was to come from the east, on the nearer rails; and there was a pretty sharp ascent going up all the way from our station to the next station in the westerly direction—a sharper ascent than one often sees on a railway. I used often to notice how the trains seemed to labour and drag going that way, and how merrily they would spin down the other way. It made a lot of difference in the amount of coal used.
Well, I reached the end of our little gravel path, walking slowly, with my back to the station, where a gate opened out on a rough path that went along the top of the embankment. I noticed carelessly, as one notices things without much caring, that mother's old red shawl, which father gave her long ago, was lying in a heap on the little bench. Mother must have been out for something with it over her shoulders, for she often felt chilly; and she must have let it drop, and forgotten it.
I went three steps, and picked up the shawl. Then I turned, and looked up and down the rail. In a moment I saw something which filled me with horror. Just where I stood, I could see farther along the line, towards the west and south-west, than any one within the station could see. And my eyes fell upon a big empty truck, slowly running down the nearer rails towards the station—the very rails upon which the express train must almost directly pass.