“It goes to my heart,” said Mildred as we returned to our car, “to think of that woman and those poor, fatherless little things in this strange land. Not one of the people with her is her friend and neighbor, and I don’t know what is to become of her.”
“How perfectly dreadful!” exclaimed Alice calmly as she scanned her cards.
“Gad, that’s tough!” ejaculated Will, and then we proceeded with our whist, which had been interrupted by this little episode.
I watched Mildred. I knew that this would not be the end of it with her, though the others soon forgot about it. She played carelessly and was beaten. She was thinking not of the game, but of the tired, broken-hearted wife in the next car who had so courageously said good-by to the Fatherland a month before with her brave Fritz, and must now end the long, wearisome journey alone, poor and friendless.
Presently she rose and left the car.
“Let me go with you,” called Will, and followed her, while I lay down on the sofa for a nap and knew nothing more until an hour later. Then I waked to find Mildred kneeling by my side and smilingly patting my cheeks.
“What do you say to having an adventure, Ruby?” she asked. “I have a capital scheme; just listen to it. Will and I have been to see that poor little woman, and it is pathetic to see how she clings to us and looks to us for assistance. She will be utterly helpless when she gets to the end of her journey. Her passage is prepaid through, but that is all. She has only three dollars left, and the agent who has all these people in charge is a hard-faced man who cannot be trusted to concern himself in the least about her.
“She opened her whole heart to me while Will amused the children, and I have learned all her simple little story. I hadn’t the heart to leave her until I had promised to see her through to her journey’s end.”
“But you forget, Mildred,” I cried astonished, and sitting up quickly; “these people are all going to switch off at the Junction and go twenty-five miles on another road. The conductor told us so, you know, and we can’t follow them, for it would make us a day late in reaching Tacoma, and auntie really must have her ulcerated tooth attended to.” She had in fact hardly held her head up that day and was suffering terribly.
“Certainly,” said Mildred; “I have thought of all that, and it is all arranged. Alice and Will are to go on with her in this car and take the best of care of her, and if you will join Hélène [the maid] and me, we will go with the immigrants and see little Frau Kopp well started in the new home before we leave her. I consider it quite a fortunate circumstance on the whole. I have wanted an excuse to mingle with the people more and learn something further of frontier life than can be seen from the windows of a parlor-car.”