"'THEY WAS GLAD TO GET RID OF ME.'"
The old man laughed a toothless laugh at her whimsical view of the lady-boards' reply, but said nothing.
"I ain't told you much of my travels yet, grampa," she said, agreeably. "I've been so busy house-cleanin'. I guess you'd like to hear about Vanceboro."
The old man did not display any particular interest in Vanceboro, but having assured herself by a swift examination of his features that the subject was not disagreeable to him, she went on, "It's a great ole place. I'd like you to go there sometime, grampa. Such goings-on with them furriners! I saw one woman walkin' up and down wringin' her hands an' cryin' 'cause they wouldn't let her bring her ole mother into this nation."
She waited for her hearer to ask why the mother was forbidden to come where the daughter could enter, but he did not do so, and she continued, "She was a poor woman from Boston, an' her mother was a poor woman from Canada, an' they said if she come in 'twould be two poor women together, an' first thing they knowed they'd be both in the poorhouse. So her mother had to go back to Canada."
Dillson looked entirely uninterested in the case of the would-be immigrant, so, after a farewell announcement that sometimes as many as two hundred "furriners" went through Vanceboro in a single day, 'Tilda Jane passed on to another branch of her subject.
"It's a reg'lar jubilee, grampa, when the trains come in—a boy runnin' to a big bell an' ringin' it, an' people pourin' into the lunch-room, an' jus' chasin' the food into their mouths an' lookin' hunted-like, as if there was somethin' after them, an' some don't take time to go to the tables. They step up to the lunch-counter, which is shaped jus' like a moon when it ain't full. There's glass dishes on it, with oranges, an' bananas, an' cakes an' pies, an' sangwiches, an' a funny machine where you drop a nickel in a crack, an' if the hand points to five, or ten or fifteen, you get twenty-five cents' worth of candy, an' if you don't get candy you get good advice like as, 'You've been keepin' bad comp'ny, quit it or you will never prosper,' or 'You've run away from home, an' the perlice is on your track,' or 'Smokin is a bad thing for your health.'"