“I’ve seen a worse-looking half-dozen before now, Mr. Rowe,” whispered the captain, looking after the children with a proud smile.
“But never a merrier one, I’ll warrant, Captain,” returned Mr. Rowe, his eyes fixed on bright-eyed Weezy, who led the procession.
At her heels strutted little Donald in his first sailor-suit. Then came flaxen-haired Paul and his brunette sister, and behind them fair, freckled Molly and brown, wide-a-wake Kirke.
After they were all seated and the car had begun to move, Molly gave a deep sigh of satisfaction.
“We’ve started on our travels, Polly, do you know it?” she said with a playful pinch of her friend’s arm. “Doesn’t it seem too good to be true?”
That first day’s ride was bliss to The Happy Six. They entertained themselves by gazing from the car window, telling stories and getting acquainted with some young girls bound for Chicago.
But when at the approach of night the colored porter came to make up the sleeping-berths, Donald cried for his own little “cribby,” and objected to going to bed in “a cupboard with a curtain to it.”
“’Tisn’t a cupboard, it’s a berth, you dear little niggeramus,” explained Weezy; and when the others laughed at the miscalled word, she thought they were laughing at Donald.
The little maid was drowsy herself by this time, and quite willing to be helped to her own berth above that of her little brother, where she undressed behind the swaying draperies, grumbling in an undertone because the train wouldn’t stop jolting while she put on her pink “slumber-wrapper.” She awoke next morning grumbling at the heat of the car.
Kirke was dressed and stood waiting to take her down in his arms.