“All aboard!” shouted the conductor. “Hurry up, there.”
Tommy shook hands tremulously with Miss Andrews and the minister. He caught a glimpse of Jabez Smith coming to get the mail, and started toward him with a vague intention of thanking him; but some one caught Tommy by the arm and pushed him up the steps and into the coach. The train was off. Through the window he caught one more glimpse of the little group on the platform, and then the train whirled him away into the great unknown.
CHAPTER IX
A GLIMPSE OF A NEW WORLD
But Tommy’s sorrow did not endure long. How could it in face of the wonders to be seen every minute through the window? For a time the old familiar mountains closed in the view, but they assumed strange and unaccustomed shapes as they whirled backward past him, with the foreground all blurred and the more distant peaks turning in stately line, like mammoth soldiers. A hand on his shoulder brought him from the window.
“Let’s have your ticket, sonny,” said the conductor.
Tommy produced it from the inside pocket of his coat. The conductor took it, unfolded it, and then glanced in surprise from it to the boyish face.
“You’re going a good ways, ain’t you?” he remarked pleasantly. “You’ll have to change cars at Washington. We get there at three thirty-nine this afternoon. I’ll get somebody there to look out after you.”
“Thank you, sir,” answered Tommy. It was good to find that friendly and helpful people lived out in the big world.
“That’s all right,” and the conductor punched his ticket and handed it back to him. “You haven’t got a thing to do now but to sit here and look out the window. Got anything to eat?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tommy, and pointed to a box which his mother had filled for him.