This retort angered Tavia, and she determined to ask no further favors from this old man. Though he did wear the uniform of a Civil War veteran, he certainly had poor manners.
"What will happen?" she asked herself, confident that something must happen to relieve the situation.
"The best I kin do," growled the old station agent, "will be to fetch you a bite to eat back from my boardin' house; and then let you sleep here till mornin'——"
"Sleep alone in a station!" exclaimed Tavia. "I'm not afraid of anything—but—I don't believe I'd like to stay in this—place all night. I have a horror of rats."
"Rats! No rats around here. I've got the best cat in the country. Switch is his name, an' that's him—he's no slouch."
"But shut up alone with a big strange cat——" and Tavia looked at the animal curled up under the beautifully-blacked and summer-shined stove.
"Well, you kin do as you please, miss, but there ain't no more trains your way to-night, supposin' you did have a ticket."
Tavia looked out over the gloom that was quickly descending upon the little hamlet. Soon it would be night! No one but that station agent in sight! No place to go, but over the hills to his boarding house, or perhaps to some farm house; where, should she have the courage to make her way through the fields up to a cabin, perhaps fierce dogs, that were already howling and barking, would become more her enemies than would be the cat, and the solitude of the station.
"And is there no church—no minister's house where a stranded girl might get shelter?"
"Nice young girls don't often get stranded," replied the old man not unreasonably, "and if I was you I'd keep my trouble purty much to myself. You kin depend upon Sam Dixon. If I say I'll do a thing I'll do it; and no harm will come to you in this here station for a night. Besides, I come over for the ten o'clock train, and I'm back for the milk train before daylight."