“Where’s there?”
“He—he said—Charles street,” she answered abashed by his brusque manner.
“Charles street! Why, that’s long back. Did you want to get off there? Oh! I forgot. You’re the child—Well, such as you ought not to be traveling alone. Here. I’ll put you off now, you can walk back. Ask anybody you meet, and they’ll direct you. Wait. I’ll give you another transfer. It’s against rules, but the other fellow’s responsible.”
This time it was a yellow slip Mary Jane received and again she was set down in the midst of a confusing crowd. She was in imminent danger of being run over, and saw that; so promptly retreated to the curbstone and from thence watched the unending procession of cars, which followed one another without a moment’s break. For just there it happened that many railway lines used the same tracks and it would have puzzled a much more experienced person than Mary Jane to distinguish between them.
Finally, she grew so tired and confused with the watching and the racket that she resolved to walk; and set out boldly in the direction from which she had come, scanning the street name-signs upon the corners. It seemed to her she would never come to that she sought, but she did, at last; and here a new difficulty presented.
“Which way shall I go? this—or that? Oh! dear! The time is going so fast and I don’t get there. I’ll have to ask somebody the way.”
But though she made several shy little efforts to attract attention, not a passer-by paused to answer her low question. Almost all fancied her an unfortunate, petitioning alms; and some thought her a street merchant with something to sell. Many and many an one had gone by, till in the midst of all these men she saw a woman.
Only a scrub-woman, to be sure, on her way to some office to her daily labor; but she paused when the cripple spoke to her and looked with feminine curiosity at the plainly clothed child in her expensive hat.
“Mt. Vernon Place! Why, child alive, it’s miles from here! Away up yonder. This is Charles and it does run straight enough, that’s so, to where you want to go. But it’s so far, little girl. And you a cripple. You’d much best go back home and let some older person do your errand. Whatever was your ma thinkin’ of, to send you such a bout?”
“She didn’t send me, I came because I wished. Can you tell me which car is right? and will this yellow ticket pay my way?”