"That's just what it is. Blackberry jam, that my Lizzie put up for John just before I left home and—oh, isn't it too bad! It's streaming all over the seat and running down on the floor! Oh my! my!"
The Woman in Brown gave a bound and was out in the aisle. "Well, I should think," she cried indignantly, "that you'd had sense enough to know better than to carry jam in a thing like that. I ain't got none on me, hev I?"
The Dear Old Lady didn't reply. She was too much absorbed in her own misfortunes to notice her companions.
"I told Lizzie," she continued, "just 'fore I left, that she oughter put it in a basket, but she 'lowed that it had a tin cap and was screwed tight, and that she'd stuff it down in my clothes and it would carry all right. I ain't never left it out of my hand but once, and then I give it to the man who helped me up the steps. He must have set it down sudden like."
As she spoke she drew out from the inside of the bag certain articles of apparel which she laid on the seat. One—evidently a neck handkerchief—looked like a towel that had just wiped off the face of a boy who had swallowed the contents of the jar.
The Woman in Brown was in the aisle now examining her skirts, twisting them round and round in search of stray bits of jam. The Dear Old Lady was still at work in her bag, her back shielding its smeared contents. Trickling down upon the floor and puddling in the aisle and under the seats on the opposite side of the car ran a sticky fluid that the woman avoided stepping upon with as much care as if it had been a snake.
I started forward to help, and then I suddenly checked myself. What could I do? The blackberry jam had not only soaked John's stockings, but it had also permeated. Well, the Dear Old Lady was travelling and evidently on the way to see John—her son, no doubt—and to stay all night. No, it was beyond question; I could not be of the slightest use. Then again, there was a woman present. Whatever help the Dear Old Lady needed should come from her.
"You ain't got no knife, I suppose?" I heard the Woman in Brown say. "If you had you could scrape most of it off."
"No," answered the Dear Old Lady. "Have you?"
"Well, I did hev, but I don't just know where it is. It would gorm that up, too, maybe, if I did find it."