I arrived in Baltimore at eight that night, and I was never so frightened. In the first place, I had never been in a large city before, and the crowd was dense. And then--I am used to being near people I know, and I hadn’t spoken a word to anyone beside the conductor all day. I began to feel terribly lonely.
So, after I had got to the waiting-room with the help of a porter, I stood and waited, feeling intensely miserable. And--when I heard, “Miss Natalie Page?” in a nice man’s voice, I said, “Thank you ever so much, God----” (inside) for I was beginning to wonder what I should do if I wasn’t met. I didn’t feel as if I could go out and take a taxi as I had been told to. For I was sure I wouldn’t know a taxi from any other kind of a car, although Miss Hooker said they had flags on them.
Well, it was Doctor Crane, and he has a real smile.
“Yes,” he went on, “it is Miss Natalie Page, and some baggage,” and we both laughed. Then he got a porter, had my things put in his small car, and we started.
“I think Mrs. Crane has a little supper waiting,” he said very cheerfully (I am sure he somehow knew that I felt timid and a little alone), “for I heard her ordering patty-cases and French pastries this morning. I don’t suppose you like them?”
I said I was sure I would.
Then he asked about uncle and my trip, and whether I’d ever been in a city before, and I answered him, trying ever so hard not to be frightened by the great crowds that ran right in front of cars at the crossings. I was quite sure we could kill someone, but we didn’t.
“Nervous?” asked Doctor Crane as we turned up into a quieter street which went past the Walters’ Art Gallery (Doctor Crane told me what it was). I said I wasn’t exactly, but that I expected to see someone killed in the mob through which we had threaded.
He laughed and replied that he didn’t have to do it with a Ford--because he was a doctor. And then we rode quite a distance, although it didn’t seem so, for I was interested, and at last we stopped before a lovely old white house. A little girl of about thirteen stood on the door-step, and as we neared I heard her call: “Mother, she’s come! They’re here! Mother!” And then she stopped yelling into the house and ran down to open the door of the car for me.
“I am Mary Elinor Crane,” she said shyly, but she smiled so genuinely that I liked her right away.