“There it is, Ellen; I hope you may understand it.”
I was a little hurt, and made answer—
“Thank you kindly, ma’am: nothing puzzles me upon the print but foreign languages or, may-be, Latin.” And as we were going down to Cranley Hurst, I fixed my mistress in the first class, and myself opposite her, with a rale carpet-bag on my lap, and my “Bradshaw” in my hand.
“You may read if you like, Ellen,” said my mistress, the smile twinkling in her eyes (I’m sure her eyes were mighty soft and sly when she was young.)
“Thank you, ma’am,” I answered; “one of my mother’s second cousins married a ‘Bradshaw,’ and may-be I’d find something about his family here.” A gentleman stared at me over his “Bradshaw,” and a mighty pert little old lady, who was reading her “Bradshaw,” let down her glass and asked me when I left Ireland. [Aunt dear, how did she know I was Irish?] I looked and looked at one page—and then at another—leaf after leaf—it was about trains, and going and coming—and figures in, and figures out—all marked, and crossed, and starred—up trains, down trains, and Sunday trains—without a bit of sense.
“When will our train arrive at Cranley station?” asked my lady, after I had been going across, and along, and about, and over “Bradshaw” for an hour or two—I was so bothered, I could not tell which.
“It was written as a penance for poor traveling sinners,” I answered in a whisper, for I did not want to let on I couldn’t understand it: she did not hear me, and asked the question again.
“I can read both running-hand and print, ma’am,” I said; “but none of my family had a turn for figures, and this looks mighty like what my brother got a prize for—they called it by the name of all-gib-raa.”
My mistress sometimes looks very provoking—and that’s the truth—I can hardly think her the same at one time that she is at another.
The little pert lady thrust her “Bradshaw” into her bag, and snapt the clasp—then turning round to the gentleman, she snapt him—“Do you understand Bradshaw, sir?”