CHAPTER VII
MARJORIE WRITES LETTERS
"October 28th, 19—
"The first letter must be to you, of course, and the next to Aunt Jessie. Uncle Henry says if I write now I can post my letter when we stop at Albuquerque this afternoon. Oh, Mother darling, was it only this morning that I said good-bye to you all? It seems as if I had been away a month already.
"I am writing this at the desk in the library car, and the train shakes so I am afraid my writing will be worse than ever. Uncle Henry says I shall soon get accustomed to the motion, but just now it makes my head ache, and the car feels very hot and stuffy. I opened the window, but a great many cinders came in, and a lady in the section next to mine asked me to close it again, so I had to.
"I hope Father didn't tell you what a goose I was at the station. I didn't mean to cry so much, but when I thought of you and Aunt Jessie waving good-bye to me from the porch, with such a sorrowful look on both your dear faces, I just couldn't help it. I am going to cheer up right away, though, so please don't worry about me.
"It really was very exciting when the train stopped at Lorton, and Uncle Henry and I got in. When it began to move, and I realized that I was actually on board, I gave a kind of gasp, and would have liked to scream, if I hadn't been afraid of shocking Uncle Henry. There are not many people on the train, the colored porter says, and Uncle Henry and I both have sections to ourselves. I thought there would be regular beds to sleep in, but there are not. The porter says they turn the seats into beds at night, and there are curtains to let down. I should think it would be very uncomfortable sleeping so close to other people, but I suppose one gets used to it when one has traveled a good deal. Uncle Henry says Aunt Julia won't travel unless she has a stateroom, but he doesn't object to the sections. I looked into the stateroom in this car, but it didn't look very different from the sections, except that it was larger and there was a place to wash.
"We had lunch at a little table in the dining-car. It was delicious but my head ached a little, and I wasn't very hungry. Uncle Henry talked politics with a gentleman who sat at the same table with us, but they didn't say much to me, so I looked out of the window, and it was all very interesting. We are in Mexico now, and to-morrow we shall be in Kansas. Kansas makes me think of Undine and Mrs. Hicks. Oh, how I do wonder if Undine will ever remember!
"Uncle Henry says we shall be in Albuquerque in a few minutes, so I must stop writing if I want to post my letter there. Good-night, Mother darling; I will write again to-morrow, and indeed, indeed, I will try to remember all the things you said to me last night, and to be always