“But you’ll have to,” cried Bess. “She’s going to the same school we do. She’s been there for two years, you see, and she knows everything,” declared Bess.
“Everything except how to be kind and polite,” suggested Nan.
“There you go again!” cried Bess. “It doesn’t sound like you at all, Nan.”
“I’m sorry,” said her chum. “I thought you knew me pretty well by this time, Bess. But, it seems you know this Linda Riggs better.”
“Oh, Nan! I don’t,” and Bess was almost ready to cry. “She, Linda, was mad when she spoke to you, of course. You ought to hear her speak of this brave girl back in the day coach, who saved the other one from the snake.”
Nan was silent; but Bess was full of the topic and the pent up volume of her speech had to find an outlet. She rushed on with:
“It was just great of her, Nan! She reminds me of you when you saved Jacky Newcomb’s life in the pond last winter—when he broke through the ice that evening.”
Nan still was silent.
“This girl is just as brave as you were,” declared Bess, with confidence. “She got off the train when it stopped. And she saw a little girl inside a house there by the railroad track. The little girl was in there and a great, big rattlesnake was coiled all ready to strike the poor little thing,” went on Bess, breathlessly.
“The colored porter told Linda and me all about it. This brave girl threw a stone on the horrid snake and killed it before it could strike the child. And then she fainted and they carried her back to the car,” pursued Bess. “And the colored man says the passengers are going to get up a memorial to present to this girl. I want to see her—to know her. Don’t you, Nan?”