“I can go alone,” Maude said courageously, though with a little sinking of the heart. “No one will harm me. Crossing the river at Albany is the worst, but I can do as the rest do, and after that I do not leave the car again until we reach Canandaigua.”
“Don’t feel so badly, mamma,” she continued, winding her arms around her mother’s neck and kissing away her tears. “I am not afraid, and don’t you know how often you have said that God cared for the fatherless, and I am that, and I shall ask Him all the time I am in the car to take care of me, and He will answer. He will hear. I’m not a child. I am eighteen in the Bible and a great deal older than that since father died. Don’t cry, darling mamma, and make it harder for me. I must go to-morrow, for school begins next Monday.”
So, for her daughter’s sake, Mrs. Graham tried to be calm, and Maude’s little hair trunk was packed with the garments, in each of which was folded a mother’s prayer for the safety of her child; and the morning came, and the ticket was bought, and the conductor, with whom Mrs. Graham had a slight acquaintance, promised to see to the little girl as far as Albany, where he would put her in charge of the man who took his place. Then the good-byes were said and the train moved on past the village on the hillside, past the dear old Spring Farm which she looked at through blinding tears as long as a tree-top was in sight, past the graveyard where her father was lying, past the meadows and woods and hills she loved so well, and on towards the new country and the new life of which she knew so little.
CHAPTER IV.
ON THE ROAD.
Those were the days when the Boston train westward-bound moved at a snail’s pace compared with what it does now, and twenty-four hours instead of twelve were required for the trip from Merrivale to Canandaigua, so that the afternoon was drawing to a close when the cars stopped in Greenbush and the passengers alighted and rushed for the boat which was to take them across the river. This, and re-checking her trunk, was what Maude dreaded the most, and her face was very white and scared and her heart beating violently as she followed the crowd, wondering if she should ever find her trunk among all that pile of baggage they were handling so roughly, and if it would be smashed to pieces when she did, and if she should get into the right car, or be carried somewhere else. She had lost sight of the conductor. Her head was beginning to ache, and there was a lump in her throat every time she thought of her mother and John, who would soon be taking their simple evening meal and talking of her.
“I wonder if I can bear it,” she said to herself, as she sat in the cabin the very image of despair, clasping her hand-bag tightly and looking anxiously at the people around her as if in search of some friendly face, which she could trust.
She had heard so much before leaving home of wolves in sheep’s or rather men’s clothing, who infest railway trains, ready to pounce upon any unsuspecting girl who chanced to fall in their way, and had been so much afraid that some of the wolves might be on her train, lying in wait for her, that she had resolutely kept her head turned to the window all the time with a prayer in her heart that God would let no one speak to and frighten her. And thus far no one had spoken to her, except the conductor, but God must have deserted her now, for just as they were reaching the opposite shore, a gentleman, who had been watching her ever since she crouched down in the shadowy corner, and who had seen her wipe the tears away more than once, came up to her and said, “Are you alone, and can I do anything for you?”
“Yes,—no; oh, I don’t know,” Maude gasped as she clutched her bag, in which was her purse, more tightly, and looked up at the face above her.
It was such a pleasant face, and the voice was so kind and reassuring, that she forgot the wolves and might have given him her bag, purse, check and all, if the conductor had not just then appeared and taken her in charge. Lifting his hat politely the stranger walked away, while Maude went to identify her trunk.
“Will you take a sleeper?” the conductor asked.