So Bertha's conscience was appeased, and they went happily to bed.
The next morning Max came home in great glee. He had seen Mr. Federshall, his old foreman, who always was cordial and sympathetic. He had told Mr. Federshall where he lived; that he had an old stable on the premises, and that, for a little, he was keeping a pair of horses there; that he had no other regular employment. And Mr. Federshall, of his own accord, had asked him to keep his covered buggy. "I have had to sell my horses long ago," he said, laughing. And Max was to store the buggy, and take his pay in the use of it for nothing.
So they might go to ride that living morning with the span, take the baby, and have no end of a "good time."
A lovely day, and a lovely ride they had of it. The baby chirruped, and was delighted, and pretended to know cows when they were pointed out to her, as if, in fact, the poor wretch knew a cow from a smoke-stack. All the same, they enjoyed their new toy—and freedom.
With this bright omen "regular work" began. But they soon found that as "regular work" meant two round trips every evening, they must not often take the horses out in the morning. As Max pointed out to Bertha, they had better hire a horse for three dollars and a half than lose one round trip. So, in the long run, they only treated themselves to a drive on a birthday or other anniversary.
A good deal of the work was a mere dragging grind, as is true of most work. Bertha declared that it came by streaks. Some nights the passengers were all crazy: women would stop the car when they did not want to get out; people would come rushing down side-streets to come on board, who found they wanted to be put out as soon as they had entered; a sweet-faced little woman would discover, after she was well in, that she was going into town when she should be going out; another would make a great row, and declare she had paid a fare, and afterward find that she had it in her glove. And all these things would happen on the same night. On another night everything would be serene, and the people as regular as if they were checker-men or other puppets. They would sit where they ought, stand where they should, enter at the right place, leave where they meant to; and Bertha would have as little need to bother herself about them as about that dear little baby who was sleeping at home so sweetly.
The night which she now looks back upon with most terror, perhaps, was the night when a director of the Cosmopolitan came on board. She was frightened almost beyond words when the tidy old gentleman nodded and smiled with a patronizing air. Did he mean to insult her? She just turned to the passenger opposite, and then, with her utmost courage, she turned to him, and said firmly, "Fare sir."
"Fare? Why, my man, I am a director. I am Mr. Siebenhold."
The passengers all grinned, as if to say not to know Mr. Siebenhold was to argue one's self unknown. Bertha had to collect all her powers. What would the stiffest martinet do in her place? She gulped down her terror.
"I can't help that, sir. If you are a director, you have a director's pass, I suppose?"