"You mustn't kick, Nelly," said Mrs. March. "If you do, you'll upset all the things out on the floor."
"I'm afraid I always kick, mamma," replied honest Nelly. "I won't while I'm awake; but when I'm asleep I don't know."
Nelly was fast asleep in two minutes; but Mrs. March could not sleep. The air in the car was so close and hot it made her head ache. She had pinned her curtains tight together before she lay down, so that nobody could look in on her as she had on the poor lady with five children. Now she sat up in bed and unpinned them, and looked out into the aisle. It was dark: the car was dashing along at a tremendous rate; the air was most disagreeable, and there were at least six people snoring different snores.
"I can't stand this. I must open the window at the foot of the berth," said Mrs. March. So she crept down and tried to open it. She had not observed in the daytime how the windows were fastened: she fumbled about in the dark till she found the fastening; she could not move it; she took the skin off her knuckles; she wrenched her shoulder; all this time sitting cross-legged on the bed. At last she gave a shove with all her strength, and the window flew up: in one second, an icy blast blew in full of smoke and cinders. "This won't do, either," said Mrs. March; and she tried to get the window down. This took longer than to get it up; finally, in despair, she propped it open about two inches with one of her boots; then she sank back exhausted, and came down hard on her watch and broke the crystal: then she had a difficult time picking up all the little bits of glass in the dark, and then, after she had picked them up, she did not know what to do with them. There was some stiff paper in her travelling-bag, if she could only get at it; at last she found it, but, in drawing it out, she knocked the cork out of the hartshorn bottle, and over went the bottle in the bag, all the hartshorn poured out, and such a strong smell of hartshorn filled the berth it waked Nelly up.
"Oh, mamma! what is it? and what smells so?" she said, sleepily.
"Only hartshorn, dear," said her mother, in a despairing tone. "I've upset it all over every thing. Go to sleep, dear: it won't smell so very long."
Nelly dozed off again, saying: "I'm going to get up just as soon as it's light. I hate this bed: don't you, mamma?"
"Yes, Nell, I do," said Mrs. March; "I would rather have sat up all night: but I am so tired and sleepy now I shall go to sleep, I think."
When Nelly waked, it was just beginning to be light. Her mother was sound asleep. Nelly leaned over her, and looked out into the aisle. Nobody was up except Ben, who was blacking boots at the end of the aisle.
"I'll get up as still as I can, and get all dressed before mamma wakes up," thought Nelly. "Poor mamma! What a time she had last night!"