It seemed so unnecessary for any one to meet her at the South Station and taxi with her over to the North Station, but there was Miss Newton, a friend who had visited the Brandons and who lived almost in Boston. With her, Nancy’s mother had arranged, both for crossing the big city and having lunch, so that there could be no possible danger in her daughter’s journey. Also, after lunch in the upstairs station restaurant, Miss Newton, a lively young woman who seemed just like a girl to Nancy, insisted upon making up a little box of fruit for the train journey.
“Never can tell about these long afternoon rides,” said Miss Newton, when she bought five more blue plums. “They may side-track you and you’ll be glad to have a fruity supper along with you.”
Nancy expressed her gratitude, of course, and as the Boston and Maine afternoon train steamed out, she didn’t feel quite so lonely without her mother, because of Miss Newton’s jolly waving and pleasant little send-off.
The train was crowded. Many mothers and children seemed to have been on shopping tours. Naturally Nancy was concerned with the prospect before her, for since Rosalind’s letters were so effusively pre-welcoming and so hysterically anxious about what she termed, “the troubles and trials at Fernlode,” Nancy could form no opinion of the strange household. She knew she was going to be shy of that important new, stylish, beautiful Aunt Betty, for the reputation she had obtained was enough to strike awe into the heart of any girl visitor. Of Uncle Frederic she knew positively that she just loved him, for he had visited her own home late last fall, and he was “a king” as Ted expressed it. Rosalind had been away at boarding school all the time, it seemed to Nancy, so the young cousins had never met, for even Rosalind’s vacations had been usually spent abroad. This year, however, she had insisted upon remaining at home, although her father and step-mother were to sail shortly.
But now Nancy’s train sped on, and the flying landscape, though novel after the big factories and the bridges were passed, held small interest for the young summer tourist. She noticed that a woman with two small boys had bought those silly little boxes of ice-cream with the foolish tin spoons, and their delight in lapping up the stuff was rather amusing. It was funny, too, to see the people spill water cups along the aisle, and when a very stout man dozed off, and let his bald head tap a lady on her bead-bedecked shoulder, Nancy indulged in an audible titter while the ice-cream boys shouted loud enough to wake up the indecorous gentleman.
Such trifling incidents helped to while away the time, and after the big mill dam was passed, which according to the timetable indicated the state line of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with somehow touching on a corner of Maine, then Nancy knew the journey was almost over.
The afternoon was cool and pleasant, for early June was still behaving beautifully, and Nancy was not sorry that she had taken her mother’s advice and worn her school suit of blue serge.
“I suppose,” she ruminated, “Rosalind’s clothes will be gor-gee-ous.” This visioned her own limited outfit. “But being so fat it must be hard getting clothes. They all have to be made to order, of course.”
It was at this juncture that the little old-fashioned woman, in the seat opposite Nancy, spread her ginghamed self out in the aisle, in order to cope more freely with the over-crowded bag she was struggling to close. Her efforts were so violent, and her groans so audible, that everybody around took frank notice of her. First, she would get between the two seats, backing to that in front, and trudge away at the helpless, hopeless carry-all. Then, she would put the bag on the floor and work from the aisle. Finally, she literally threw up her hands and looked comically at Nancy.
“Ain’t it the mischief, sissy?” she said suddenly. “I got to get off with that bag bulged wide open.”