“I don’t reckon she does,” Tom replied; “but she can’t count on stayin’ with us, ’cause it would spoil all the fun to begin with, an’ then agin, no feller could help laughin’ if he saw her with us. We wanter go by ourselves, an’ do the thing up in style, that’s what we’re after.”
“I won’t talk any more about it now,” Josiah said; “but I’ve got to see her again before I go home.”
“There’ll be plenty of chance for that. She’s allers up there sellin’ matches. When we haven’t got anything better to do, Bob an’ I’ll go with you. Now come on, ’cause we wanter scoop in all we can.”
Josiah followed his friends out of the dirty court into the noisy street, and down to the Sixth Avenue elevated railway station, where he clambered up the stairs with no slight degree of trepidation, for this “goin’ on the roof to find a train of cars” was something so novel in his experience as to be almost alarming.
First he feared the stair-way was not sufficiently strong to bear in safety all the people crowded upon it, and then he began to feel quite positive the small pillars which upheld the tracks would be crushed beneath the weight of the train.
Tom and Bob enjoyed his nervousness.
Previous to this time they had failed to show their guest anything which impressed him quite as much as they desired; but now their efforts were crowned with success, and it was in the highest degree satisfactory to them.
“I would have been willin’ to pay ten cents rather than not seen him fidget ’round as he’s doin’ now,” Tom whispered to Bob as Josiah, standing near the news-counter, shrank back from the edge of the platform lest he should be thrown into the street by the throng of passengers around him.
Josiah managed to hide his fears after a few moments, greatly to the disappointment of his friends; and when he entered the cars there was no thought of the match-girl, for this being able to look in at the second or third story windows of the buildings which they passed was something so strange that there was no room in his mind for anything else.
“I’ll bet Tim Berry’s eyes will stick out when I tell him of this ride,” he said in a confidential whisper to his friends. “He never saw anything like steam-cars runnin’ in the air, an’ jest as likely as not won’t be willin’ to believe what I tell him.”