Chapter IV: A Baby Left in the Train

A ROAR of machinery, a succession of dizzying flashes past the window, then sudden relief from the deafening noise, and the express train had gone on its way.

Christie looked at Wells Burton. His face was very grave, and she thought it a trifle paler than before.

"Did you know that?" he asked, nodding his head in the direction of the departed train.

"Did I know what?"

"That the express train was almost due, and would come thundering over me so soon?"

Christie shivered. "I did not know anything about the express train," she said.

"Well, you could not have done any quicker work if you had known. It is queer I didn't think of it. I thought of almost everything else while I lay there; it was the queerest thing that ever happened to me. I can't think how it happened. I've stood on that very step fifty times this winter, and never thought of such a thing as slipping. I suppose there was ice on my boots. Nice-looking boot, isn't it?" he said, glancing down at it. "The conductor made short work of getting it off, with that sharp knife of his. Look here, I don't know why I keep talking about boots and things, instead of trying to thank you, and show my gratitude in some way. Boys don't know how to do that sort of thing, anyhow. You ought to see my mamma; or she ought to see you. Mothers know how to say what they feel."

"I don't want to be thanked," said Christie, her cheeks flushing, "I didn't do anything."

"No, only saved my life, and showed more pluck and common sense, and quick wit than any fourteen girls put together ever had before. You see, if you had wasted twenty-five seconds, this train couldn't have run back to pick me up, without running into the express; and I should just have had to lie there and be crushed. I couldn't move, any more than if I had been dead; in fact, I was dead, when they picked me up, fainted, you know. But before I fainted, I knew just what had happened, and where I was, and what was likely to happen next. I didn't think of this express that had just rushed by, but I thought of the up train, due in half an hour, and I knew there wasn't a house nor a shed within a mile. Did you ever come to a place where you thought you could see pretty plainly that you were not going to live but a few minutes more?"

"Once I was very sick indeed," Christie said, "and the doctor gave me up, and mother thought I was dying; and they told me that I couldn't live but a few minutes."

"And what did you do?"

The blood rolled in waves over Christie's face and neck. It was rather hard to talk to a strange boy who might laugh at her, about one of the most solemn experiences of her life. She was not used to talking with boys, only Karl, and he never asked such straight-out questions about things, and waited for answers. Something must be said; and what should be said but the truth? Was she ashamed of it? Christie wondered.

She dropped her grey eyes, and her voice was low but clear as she said: "I prayed."

There was no sound of a laugh or a sneer in answer.

"Yes," he said, nodding his head as though he understood, "so did I. I wonder if they all do when they get into downright trouble? I have heard that people did, bad men, you know, and all sorts of people. It seems sort of mean, and—well, I don't suppose girls use such words, but what we boys would call sneaking. Don't you think so?"

But Christie, in her confusion, did not understand him. Did he mean that boys would call it "sneaking" to pray? "What is?"

"Why, living along all your life without thinking of such a thing as praying until just when you get into trouble, and then praying with all your might, and getting helped out, and going on just the same as you did before."

"Oh," said Christie, relieved, "why, yes, I think that would be mean, but then, real honest people don't do it."

"They don't? What 'do' they do then? Weren't you honest?"

"Yes," said Christie gravely, "I was, but I didn't go on just as I did before; everything was just as different as could be."

"What do you mean? What was different?"

"Why, I myself. I didn't feel the same, nor do the same. I don't think I can explain what I mean."

"Didn't you pray to get well?"

"A little; and I prayed to be made ready to die if I 'was' to die, and to—not to be afraid, you know."

"Well?"

"And pretty soon the feeling afraid all went away, and I didn't think it made much difference whether I got well or not; and for days and days nobody thought I would."

"But you did get well?"

"Oh, yes, I did, of course, or else I should not be here now."

And at this point Christie could not help giving a little laugh.

Wells did not laugh at all. He looked grave and perplexed.

"That is just what I said," he repeated. "You prayed to be gotten out of trouble, and you got out, and then things went on as before."

"But things didn't go on as before," persisted Christie. "I asked not to be afraid to die, to have a heart given to me that could trust Jesus anyhow, whether He wanted me to live or die. And I got it; so of course things were different."

"You got it!"

"Why, yes. All in a minute everything seemed changed. I can't tell you how, but then I know it was so."

"When was that?"

"That I was sick? It was a year ago last December, just a little bit before Christmas."

"And the difference lasts?"

"Oh, yes, it lasts," said Christie, with a curious little smile. "Every day when I'm working, it all comes back, you know, in a quick little think."

She began to think that this was the strangest boy to talk she had ever heard of. He was even stranger than some of the boys in story books.

"Well," he said, after a few moments of silence, "I prayed to be made ready to die too; for when this train rattled off, I didn't see any other way. It didn't seem probable that anybody would come along that lonesome road on Christmas Day in time to save me, and I meant to be honest, but I didn't think of such a thing as its lasting if I got out of the scrape."

Christie looked puzzled.

"How could it last to take you to Heaven, if it wouldn't last any when you were not to go to Heaven yet?" she asked.

And then Wells Burton laughed, though the pain in his ankle immediately made heavy wrinkles come back into his face.

"It looks like playing a very poor game, I'll own," he said, "but I thought I meant it."

"But if you really did mean it, you gave yourself away to Him, and if you are honest, how can you take yourself back?"

To this he made no answer for several seconds, and, indeed, what he said next can hardly be called an answer:

"Then you are a Christian!"

The red came back in swift waves to Christie's cheeks. She had been so interested as to hardly remember that the talk was partly about herself, but this plain question which was also an exclamation, brought back her embarrassment.

"I think I am," she said hesitatingly, and then ashamed of such witnessing, added boldly: "Yes, I 'know' I am."

"And I know that I am not," he said, with a little laugh.

After a few minutes of silence, during which Christie was wondering whether the proper thing to do now would be to go back to her seat, he spoke again:

"Isn't it time we were introduced? I know you very well indeed. You are Christie Tucker, aren't you? And the boy whom I meet at the station almost every morning, who will not look at me nor give me a chance to speak to him, is your brother Karl. I asked the stage-driver all about him. What is the use in his not speaking to me?"

"He is only ten," said Christie in apology.

"And I am only fourteen, or half-way between that and fifteen. What difference does four or five years make? When I get to be forty, it won't hinder our being good friends because he is only thirty-five or so. There are not so many people to be friendly with up there where we live that we can afford to waste any of them. I looked over at your class that day I stayed to Sunday-school, and thought you were having a nice time."

"We were," said Christie with animation. "Mr. Keith is splendid."

Wells made a gesture of disagreement.

"I don't like ministers as a rule," he said; "they always pitch into a fellow so."

"I don't know what that is," said Christie simply, "but every one likes Mr. Keith—that is, every one but bad men; of course they don't like him because he makes them remember that they are bad, and they want to forget it."

"Do you suppose that is the reason why I don't like him?" Wells asked with a comical little look.

And then, his face growing grave, "I'll tell you a queer thing, though. Back there, while I lay across those rails and thought I was done with things, I didn't even think of mamma in the sense that I wanted her there that minute—the only one that I thought of was this Mr. Keith. I wished for him, not to pull me off of the track, you know, which would have been the reasonable thing to do if he had been there, but to pray for me; and I never saw him but twice in my life.

"I'll tell you what made me think of that though. Do you remember a Sunday when they thought that Olin boy was going to die? Well, I was in church that Sunday, and Mr. Keith prayed for him; and I thought then if I were going to die, I should like to have Mr. Keith pray for me.

"Aren't we going most uncommonly slow? By the way my foot twinges, I should say we had been about seventeen hours so far reaching the city, and we must be twelve or fourteen miles away yet. I declare, if we are not stopping again! What for, I'd like to know? There is no station here."

What for, indeed? That question seemed to be on the faces of all the passengers. Christie looked out of the window; so did everybody else except Wells Burton, who could not lift himself up to do so.

"Where is it?" he asked.

"It is nowhere," answered Christie with a little laugh. "We seem to be just in the road. There isn't a house to be seen, and there is snow everywhere where there isn't mud. No, I don't think there is any station; at least, I don't see any depot."

"I know there isn't a station nor a depot," said Wells, confidently, "unless it has been built since last night."

"What's the matter sir?" This last to a man who had been out to hear the news.

"Track washed away," said the man, using as few words as possible, and looking gloomy.

"Washed away! Why, how much of it?"

"More than I know; some say half a mile, and some say five miles; enough of it to keep us standing here longer than we want to, I guess."

"Where is 'here?' Are we near the station?"

"No, two miles out."

"And is it right here that the track has washed?"

"No, half a mile or so up the track; they sent signals down to us."

"Thank you, sir," said Wells, and the man moved on.

"Here's a go!" the boy said gravely. "Or no, it isn't, it's a standstill; and that's slang I suppose. My mother hates slang, and so does yours I presume, mothers all do; I beg your pardon for using it, but I do wonder how long we are to be stopped here! If it is going to be long, I'm afraid I shall wish for a surgeon to cut off my foot."

"Does it pain you very much?" asked Christie sympathetically.

"Well, I've had things that felt pleasanter. These heavy rains and then the thaw have played the mischief with the railroad track; father said he was afraid there would be trouble. But I just wish they had waited until after Christmas. I'm afraid you and I will be late to our Christmas dinner."

"I'm sorry for that poor man," said Christie, twisting herself to get a glimpse of the sad-faced young man who had his watch in his hand at this moment. "There is a sick friend whom he thinks he could help if he could only get there in time; see how troubled he looks."

"Poor fellow!" said Wells sympathetically.

But the next moment Christie's attention was turned elsewhere. She turned herself completely around, and gazed up and down the car. Finally, she stood up on tiptoe for a moment.

"What's the trouble?" asked Wells. "Lost something?"

But by way of answer, she turned toward him, her face full of anxiety, and asked: "Where is that baby's mother?"

"What baby? The lady with a baby got off at the last station."

"Why, no, she didn't; I see the baby as plain as can be, lying on the little bed she made for him; he is fast asleep, but I don't see her anywhere?"

"I tell you she got off," said Wells, growing earnest. "I happened to be looking right at her; I noticed her particularly because she had a shawl like mamma's, and I wondered if she looked like mamma, and I stared at her a good deal to find out. Oh, yes, she stepped off the cars and stepped into a mud puddle and got her feet wet, and looked cross. I raised myself up to see her do it and hurt my foot by the means, and then I looked cross."

"Then," said Christie, her face full of anxiety, not to say terror, "then she has left her baby!"

Unlikely as it sounds, this appeared to be the case. In the course of a few minutes, somebody else began to be interested in the same thought; that was no other person than the baby himself. He began to rub his eyes, and yawn and twist about on his narrow bed in a very dangerous way. At last, he was only held on by the cane of a gentleman who built a fence before baby by holding up the cane. Then he looked about him in a savage manner, and asked,—

"Where is this child's mother?"

Where indeed! That was just what baby wanted to know, and he began to give warning little whimpers which said: "I'll cry in a way to astonish you, if somebody doesn't come and attend to me very soon."

What was to be done? Christie looked about her very much startled, and discovered that there was but one lady on the car; she was young and pretty, dressed in velvet, and looked as though she thought babies were a mistake and a nuisance.

"Madam," said the man with the cane, glowering at her, "do you know anything about the child's mother?"

"How should I?" answered the velvet-dressed lady, and she immediately went back to her "Seaside Library" book.

Then the baby gave a warning yell.

Christie started up. "That baby is afraid," she said to Wells. "The next thing he will cry so hard that nobody can stop him; I'm going over there."

"Do you know him?" asked Wells, looking at the baby as though he would much rather undertake to pacify a cross dog.

"Oh, no; I don't know who he is at all. But he begins to cry as though he was afraid, and if it was our baby at home, I don't know what I should do."

With this rather mixed up sentence, she hurried away, and in another moment was bending over the baby who had not fully decided whether to be angry or grieved over the strange treatment he was receiving. He had his lips in a dreadful pucker, and the squeal he was prepared to give would, I think, have astonished all the people. But he changed his mind when he saw Christie, and gave her an astonished stare, and made no objection when she raised him with cooing words, and cuddled his face to hers.

"Is he your brother?" inquired the gentleman with the cane. "You shouldn't leave him alone in that way; it is very careless. He might have rolled off and knocked his brains out."

"Oh, no, sir," said Christie, who by this time could not help smiling to think how many people she was expected to claim as relatives. "I don't know who he is, poor baby! And I can't think what has become of his mother." Then she kissed him.