“It’ll get you out from underfoot,” she says, “and keep us from being et out of house and home. I guess if the others can go you can.”
You always could depend on Mrs. Tidd to be just that way. She was so busy with housekeeping or something, and had her head so full that she didn’t get to understand what you said at first and always said no just to be safe, I guess. But I never knew her to refuse Mark anything that he had any business asking. For all her quickness we fellows thought a heap of her, I want to tell you.
When the Martins and Smalleys found out we could go they let Tallow and Plunk come along, so there we were. We fixed it to leave the day school was out and to stay just as long as we could hold out.
We started the day we planned. At first we thought we’d take a lunch, but Mrs. Tidd set her foot down.
“You’ll need a hot meal,” she told us, “so you go right into the dining-car when you get hungry.” Then she gave Mark the money for our dinners, and we all kissed our folks good-by and got on the train.
It was pretty interesting riding along, and we enjoyed it fine till we got to Grand Rapids. We had to change there for Baldwin, and from then on the ride began to get tiresome. We tried a lot of things to pass away the time, but nothing helped. I guess it was because we were so anxious to get into the woods. We went along and along and along. I hadn’t any idea Michigan was so big. After a while a colored man came in and yelled that dinner was ready in the dining-car. Mark began to grin. It looked like he was ready for the dinner. So was I, and the other fellows didn’t hold back much. We went in and sat down at a little table. Each of us got a card that told what there was to eat. There were so many things it was hard to make up our minds, but finally we hit on the idea of every fellow taking something different, and so we got a look at more of it than we would any other way. We were about two-thirds through eating when all at once that car acted like it had gone crazy. I looked at the other three, and you never saw folks with such scared expressions in all your life. Their eyes bulged out, their mouths were open.
Well, sir, we just rose right up out of our chairs; that is, all of us did but Mark Tidd, and he was so wedged in he couldn’t. It started with a crack that we could hear above the roaring of the train, then the car sagged down at the front end and began to bump and jump and wabble back and forth like a boat in a storm. We hadn’t time to get scared—only startled. Then the car went over—smash! I don’t believe anybody ever got such a jolt. The next thing I knew I was kicking around in a mess of rubbish with my head down and my feet up. Busted tables and dishes and chairs and folks were all scrambled on top of me. First off I thought sure it was the end of me, but I didn’t hurt any place, and when my heart settled down below my Adam’s apple I began squirming around to get loose.
I remember the first thing I thought about was its being so still. Nobody was hollering or groaning or anything. It surprised me and sort of frightened me. I squirmed harder and wriggled a table off me and pushed a chair away from the back of my neck. Then I sat up. You never saw such a sight. The car was lying on its side, and the lower side where I was was nothing but a jumble of things and people. And the whole jumble looked like it was squirming.
Next I thought about Mark Tidd. He was so fat and heavy I was afraid he’d be smashed all to pieces. I tried to call him, and at the third try I got out his name.
“Mark,” says I, faint-like, “are you hurt?”