“No; why not?”
“Because it takes father too often away, and once it nearly killed him,” said Gertie.
“Ah, that was the time that my own dear mother received such a shock, I suppose?”
“No, ma’am,” said Will Garvie, “Gertie is thinkin’ of another time, when Jack Marrot was drivin’ an excursion train—not three years gone by, and he ran into a lot of empty trucks that had broke loose from a train in advance. They turned the engine off the rails, and it ran down an embankment into a ploughed field, where it turned right over on the top of Jack. Fortunately he fell between the funnel and the steam-dome, which was the means of savin’ his life; but he got a bad shake, and was off duty some six or eight weeks. The fireman escaped without a scratch, and, as the coupling of the leading carriage broke, the train didn’t leave the metals, and no serious damage was done to any one else. I think our Gertie,” continued Will, laying his big strong hand gently on the child’s head, “seems to have taken an ill-will to railways since then.”
“I’m not surprised to hear it,” observed Emma Lee, as she bent down and kissed Gertie’s forehead. “I have once been in a railway accident myself, and I share your dislike; but I fear that we couldn’t get on well without them now, so you and I must be content to tolerate them, Gertie.”
“I s’pose so,” was Gertie’s quiet response, delivered, much to the amusement of her audience, with the gravity and the air of a grown woman.
“Well, good-evening, Gertie, good-evening,” said Netta, turning to Garvie; “then I may tell my nurse that the engine-driver of the express will take care of her.”
“Yes, ma’am, you may; for the matter o’ that, the fireman of the express will keep an eye on her too,” said the gallant William, touching his cap as the two friends left that bright oasis in the desert and returned to Eden Villa.