“I’ll not. And I thank you very much.”
“Hmm. She may be a backwoods girl but she can give a lesson in manners to many a city miss,” thought the obliging guide, as he led Margot forward through the few cars toward the front; and, at the next stop, helped her to the ground and up again into the little shut-in space beside the grimy driver of this wonderful iron horse.
Margot never forgot that ride; nor the man at the lever his unknown passenger. She had left her obnoxious bonnet upon the seat beside old Joseph and her hair had broken from its unaccustomed braid to its habitual freedom, so that it enveloped her and streamed behind her like a cloud. Her trim short skirt, her heelless shoes, her absence of “flummery” aroused the engineer’s admiration and he volunteered, what he had previously declined to give, all possible information concerning his beloved locomotive. He even allowed her, for one brief moment to put her own hand on the lever and feel the thrill of that resistless plunging forward into space.
It was only when they stopped again and she knew she ought to go back to Joe that she ventured to speak.
“I never enjoyed anything so much in my life, nor learned so much in so short a time. I wish—I wish—have you a sister, or a little girl? Or anybody you love very much?”
“Why, yes. I’ve got the nicest little girl in the United States. She’s three years old and as cute as they make ’em.”
“You’ve given me pleasure, I’d like to give her as much. May she have this from me, to get—whatever a town child would like?”
“Sure, miss, it’s too much; but——”
Margot was gone, and on the engineer’s palm shone a bright gold coin. All Mr. Dutton’s money was in specie and he had given Margot a liberal amount of “spending money” for her trip. Money being a thing she knew as little about as she did traveling he had determined to let her learn its value by experience; yet even he might have been a trifle shocked by the liberality of this, her first “tip.” However, she saw only the gratitude that leaped into the trainman’s eyes and was glad that she had had the piece handy in her pocket.