The bloom of the May morning was still on the tender, up-springing grass and the fresh foliage of the trees. Birds sang cheerfully on, in spite of the thundering engine on its way to the scene of woe. But there was no more beauty in the world for Salome.
Three or four physicians sat in the corner of the one baggage-car which they all occupied together, and, used as they were to scenes of death and suffering, talked indifferently of politics and the misdoings of Congress. The brakeman laughed as the conductor passed him with some trivial remark. To Salome it seemed that she alone, of all the world, cared because thirteen persons lay dead and twenty more were fatally injured, a few miles away.
Afterwards, when she saw the tenderness and courageous sympathy of these people among the suffering, she reversed her judgment.
A small woman in black sat at the opposite end of the car, and was the only other passenger.
“Who is that?” She stopped the conductor to ask the question, at last drawn out of her own sorrow by the pathetic attitude of the woman’s figure.
“That’s the engineer’s mother. He is fatally hurt. He’s the last of her five boys, and her sole dependence. It’s pretty rough on her; but the boys won’t let her suffer.”
His words came like a reproach to her. What right had she, with all her wealth and friends and pleasures, to think of herself as the only suffering one? What was her sorrow, compared to that of this bereaved mother?
She felt an impulse to go over to the motionless figure and speak a word of comfort. And then she felt the train slacking up.
“We’re almost there,” the conductor said, as he passed her again.
When the train stopped, two of the physicians, having heard who she was, came forward with offers of assistance. The others were kindly aiding the pathetic old lady in black.