The Bird in the Box

by Mary M. Mears

"It's jest female feelings," Zarah affirmed, "she ain't rightly found her rudder yet, and she's young. It's always so with women;"—a remark of unusual length and penetration for Zarah.

Finally old David hit on a plan for diverting her, a plan, however, which was destined to increase her malady rather than to cure it. In the Old Harbour paper that once a week found its way to the Point, there appeared an account of a private car fresh from the shops which, for the purpose of conveying his family and friends to their home in the city, had been brought to Old Harbour by a wealthy summer resident. The car was stalled on a side track, and old David proposed to his granddaughter that they go and see it.

It was a fine clear afternoon, and as the visit was in the nature of a pleasure expedition, they drove beside Zarah Patch in his cart. As they bowled along the road, the ruts of which were slightly stiffened by the frost, old David talked continuously and Rachel found herself listening.

"You know I used to work in the car shops at Philadelphy when I was a young chap," he explained. "It was an immense sky-lighted place covered with tracks and filled from one end to t'other with cars, some old to be repainted and some entirely new. Winter was the time when the old ones used to come troopin' back to us all faded and travel-stained; they used to seem like old women whose finery was a little gone-by, who came back to see how young and spruce they could be made to look. And in the summer we fitted out the new ones, and they of course was like young things jest preparin' fer their first venture into the world.

"I tell ye," he continued, "I used to feel about them jest as if they were human creatures. The men who worked there was called 'liners,' 'sign-writers,' 'hardwood-finishers,' 'decorators,' and 'rubbers-down.' The 'rubbers-down' worked with emery-cloth and water, and oh my, didn't they have to be careful about savin' the gold paint on the old cars, though! For the letters and lines of gold on a car are always left to stand, bein' as you might say, her jewellery," he added, with a cackling laugh.

But when the little party descended at the station, the magnificence of the new coach dazzled old David. He had never seen anything like it, though this fact he strove to conceal.

"They used to decorate 'em more," he said, "they used to paint scrolls along the sides, and between the winders they put on yaller tulips; and to my mind, the cars was handsomer."

The ticket agent ran across the tracks to open the new coach and the old man, to demonstrate his knowledge of the subject, began enumerating the different classes of common cars. "'P.K.' is the best of 'em," he proclaimed, "'P.K. Wide Vestibule'. But of course this car is something a little extry."

When, however, the ticket agent had left them and they once more stood looking up at the coach, he broke forth into lyric praise of it.

"'Tain't hardly been on the tracks, remember," he cried, "but think of the miles and miles it has to run, through what different kinds of country. It'll be like a good soldier followin' the leader! But the engine! Oh, that's the master of 'em all!" he continued; "great, shinin', pantin' master, that's what the engine is, the master."