And then comes the word that this organist guy will be on his way up across lots, after an over-night stop in New Haven, and will take me aboard if I can make the proper connection.
"Suppose I make a slip, though?" says I. "There I'll be stranded up in the pie belt with nothing but my feet to ride fifty miles on. Sorry, Vee, but I guess your old boardin' school chum will have to break into matrimony without my help."
Maybe you think that settled it. If you do you ain't tried being married. Inside of half an hour we'd agreed on the usual compromise—I'm to do as Vee says.
So here at 11:15 on a bright summer mornin' I'm dumped off a trolley car way out on the upper edge of Massachusetts. It's about as lonesome a spot as you could find on the map. Nothing but fields and woods in sight, and a dusty road windin' across the right of way. Not a house to be seen, not even a barn.
"You're sure this is Dorr's Crossin', eh?" I asks of the conductor as I hesitates on the step.
"Oh, yes," says he, cheerful.
"Don't seem to be usin' it much, does he?" says I.
"Ding, ding!" remarks the fare collector to the motorman, and it was a case of hoppin' lively for me.
There's nothing left to do but hoist myself conspicuous onto a convenient wayside rock and hope that this Barry Crane person was runnin' somewhere near on time. About then I begun to wish I knew more about him, his general habits and so on. Was his memory good? Could he be depended on to keep dates with strangers? Would he know Dorr's Crossing when he saw it?
Vee hadn't touched on any of these points when she was convincin' me how simple it would be for him and me to get together. Course, she'd given me a chatty little sketch of Mr. Crane, but mostly it had been about what a swell organist he was. Played in a big church. Not only that, but made up pieces, all out of his own head. Also she'd mentioned about his hopeless romance with a certain Ann McLeod.