"Well, where was I? Oh, I know—on the sidetrack. (I had to laugh here, for it occurred to me that that was just where I was in the story—on a sidetrack! I'm not telling what I started out to tell at all. It's lucky we can each take all the room we want, though, in these Chronicles.)
"Well, I'll tell it now, really, though I'm still so shaky and excited my hand trembles awfully. It was in the night, a little past twelve o'clock that it happened. I was lying in my berth above Elsie's, and was wide-awake. I had been thinking about Father. He has been such a dear all the way. I was thinking what a big, big dear he was, when IT happened.
"Yes, I put IT in capitals on purpose, and I reckon you would, if suddenly the car you were riding in began to sway horribly and bump up and down, and then stop right off short with a bang that flung you into the middle of the aisle! And that's what ours did.
"For a minute, of course, I was too dazed to know what had happened. But the next moment I heard a scared voice wail right in my ear:
"'Girls, it's an accident—I know it's an accident! I told you we should have an accident—and to think I took off my shoes to-night for the very first time!'
"I knew then. It was Bertha, and it was an accident. And, do you know? I'm ashamed to tell it, but the first thing I did right there and then was to laugh—it seemed so funny about Bertha's shoes, and to hear her say her usual 'I told you so!' But the next minute I began to realize what it all really meant, and I didn't laugh any more.
"All around me, by that time, were frightened cries and shouts, and I was so worried for Father and all the rest. I struggled, and tried to get up; and then I heard Father's voice call: 'Genevieve, Genevieve, where are you? Are you all right?' Oh, nobody will ever know how good that dear voice sounded to me!
"We called for Aunt Julia, then, and for the girls; but it was ever so long before we could find them. We weren't all together, anyway, and the crash had separated us more than ever. Besides, everybody everywhere all over the car was crying out by that time, and trying to find folks, all in the dark.
"We found Aunt Julia. She was almost under the berth near me; but she was so faint and dazed she could not answer when we first called. I was all right, and so were Cordelia and Bertha, only Bertha bumped her head pretty hard afterwards, looking for her shoes. Elsie Martin and Alma Lane were a little bruised and bumped, too; but they declared they could move all their legs and arms.
"We hadn't any of us found Tilly up to that time; but when Elsie said that (about being able to move all her legs and arms), I heard a little faint voice say 'You talk as if you were a centipede, Elsie Martin!'