“I’m blessed if they’re not by themselves,” he said, watching them as they scrambled up the steps. “And they’re going to the Fair, I’ll bet a dollar. That’s Young America, and no mistake!”
IX
The car was quite crowded. There were more people than themselves who were going to the Fair and were obliged to economize. When the children entered, and looked about them in the dim light, they thought at first that all the seats were full. People seemed to be huddled up asleep or sitting up awake in all of them. Everybody had been trying to get to sleep, at least, and the twins found themselves making their whispers even lower than before.
“I think there is a seat empty just behind that very fat lady,” Meg whispered.
It was at the end of the car, and they went to it, and found she was right. They took possession of it quietly, putting their satchel under the seat.
“It seems so still,” said Meg, “I feel as if I was in somebody’s bedroom. The sound of the wheels makes it seem all the quieter. It’s as if we were shut in by the noise.”
“We mustn’t talk,” said Robin, “or we shall waken the people. Can you go to sleep, Meg?”
“I can if I can stop thinking,” she answered, with a joyful sigh. “I’m very tired; but the wheels keep saying, over and over again, ‘We’re going—we’re going—we’re going.’ It’s just as if they were talking. Don’t you hear them?”
“Yes, I do. Do they say that to you, too? But we mustn’t listen,” Robin whispered back. “If we do we shall not go to sleep, and then we shall be too tired to walk about. Let’s put our heads down, and shut our eyes, Meg.”
“Well, let’s,” said Meg.