Mrs. Jenks smiled and sighed and put some cakes in the box.
Miss Davis called for Hazel in a carriage, and the little girl felt very proud as she drove away with her new friend. The station was an exciting place. Hazel saw a check marked “Boston” put on her trunk and knew that home was near. She entered the Pullman car with Miss Davis and held her hand tightly as the porter showed them their seats. All her safety from insult, she knew, lay in the presence of her white companion. They sat down together and at length the train drew out of the station, headed for the North and home.
The little girl looked up at her friend. “I’m trying to think all the time of Mother,” she said, “but I can’t forget Granny and Scip.”
“You’ll visit them again,” Miss Davis said consolingly. “When people once begin to travel they never stop.”
The journey was full of interest to Hazel, and not an unkind word was said to her during the trip. Indeed, an old lady in the seat across the aisle took a fancy to her, and sent her a big plate of ice-cream from the dining car. “Two portions, I’m sure,” Miss Davis said when she heard about it. New York was reached, a din of trolleys and elevateds and a big, beautiful station with a restaurant where everyone could sit and eat, and then Boston and home.
It was night when they got off the train at the South Station, and Hazel trembled as she walked by Miss Davis’s side. If Mother should miss her! Then she saw a big black man and she rushed toward and past him and into her mother’s arms.
“I waited a long time for my greeting,” said Mr. Perkins, smoothing his coat collar, “but it was satisfactory when I got it.”
“Where is Miss Davis?” asked Hazel when she could look about her again.
“She left her good-bye,” said Mr. Perkins; “she was hurrying to meet someone, too; perhaps it was her brother, and perhaps it wasn’t. Come, Little Frog, give me your check. I’ll look after your trunk when I’ve put you and your mother on the car. You’re coming to dine with us Sunday.”
How beautiful home looked with its three dear little rooms! The table was set for supper. There was a big dish of strawberries, white bread and butter, and a spider on the fire with a lamb chop in it ready to cook! In a moment Charity came in.