Chapter IV: On the Road

Those were the days when the Boston train westward-bound moved at a snail’s pace compared with what it does now, and twenty-four hours instead of twelve were required for the trip from Merrivale to Canandaigua, so that the afternoon was drawing to a close when the cars stopped in Greenbush and the passengers alighted and rushed for the boat which was to take them across the river. This, and re-checking her trunk, was what Maude dreaded the most, and her face was very white and scared and her heart beating violently as she followed the crowd, wondering if she should ever find her trunk among all that pile of baggage they were handling so roughly, and if it would be smashed to pieces when she did, and if she should get into the right car, or be carried somewhere else. She had lost sight of the conductor. Her head was beginning to ache, and there was a lump in her throat every time she thought of her mother and John, who would soon be taking their simple evening meal and talking of her.

“I wonder if I can bear it,” she said to herself, as she sat in the cabin the very image of despair, clasping her hand-bag tightly and looking anxiously at the people around her as if in search of some friendly face, which she could trust.

She had heard so much before leaving home of wolves in sheep’s or rather men’s clothing, who infest railway trains, ready to pounce upon any unsuspecting girl who chanced to fall in their way, and had been so much afraid that some of the wolves might be on her train, lying in wait for her, that she had resolutely kept her head turned to the window all the time with a prayer in her heart that God would let no one speak to and frighten her. And thus far no one had spoken to her, except the conductor, but God must have deserted her now, for just as they were reaching the opposite shore, a gentleman, who had been watching her ever since she crouched down in the shadowy corner, and who had seen her wipe the tears away more than once, came up to her and said, “Are you alone, and can I do anything for you?”

“Yes,—no; oh, I don’t know,” Maude gasped as she clutched her bag, in which was her purse, more tightly, and looked up at the face above her.

It was such a pleasant face, and the voice was so kind and reassuring, that she forgot the wolves and might have given him her bag, purse, check and all, if the conductor had not just then appeared and taken her in charge. Lifting his hat politely the stranger walked away, while Maude went to identify her trunk.

“Will you take a sleeper?” the conductor asked.

And she replied: “Oh, no. I can’t afford that.”

So he found her a whole seat in the common car, and telling her he would speak of her to the new conductor, bade her good-bye, and she was left alone.

Very nervously she watched her fellow passengers as they came hurrying in,—men, mostly, it seemed to her,—rough-looking men, too, for there had been a horserace that day at a point on the Harlem road, and they were returning from it. Occasionally some one of them stopped and looked at the girl in black, who sat so straight and still, with her hand-bag held down upon the vacant seat beside her as if to keep it intact. But no one offered to take it, and Maude breathed more freely as the crowded train moved slowly from the depot. After a little the new conductor came and spoke to her and looked at her ticket and went out, and then she was really alone. New England, with its rocks and hills and mountains, was behind her. Mother, and John, and home were far away, and the lump in her throat grew larger, and there crept over her such a sense of dreariness and homesickness, that she would have cried outright if she dared to. There were only six women in the car besides herself. All the rest were _wolves_; she felt sure of that, they talked and laughed so loud, and spit so much tobacco-juice. They were so different from the stranger on the boat, she thought, wondering who he was and where he had gone. How pleasantly he had spoken to her, and how she wished——She got no further, for a voice said to her:

“Can I sit by you? Every other seat is taken.”

“Yes, oh, yes. I am so glad,” Maude exclaimed involuntarily in her delight at recognizing the stranger, and springing to her feet she offered him the seat next to the window.

“Oh, no,” he said, with a smile which would have won the confidence of any girl. “Keep that yourself. You will be more comfortable there. Are you going to ride all night?”

“Yes, I am going to Canandaigua,” she replied.

“To Canandaigua!” he repeated, looking at her a little curiously; but he asked no more questions then, and busied himself with adjusting his bag and his large traveling shawl, which last he put on the back of the seat,, more behind Maude than himself.

Then he took out a magazine, while Maude watched him furtively, thinking him the finest looking man she had ever seen, except her father, of whom, in his manner, he reminded her a little. Not nearly so old, certainly, as her father, and not young like Archie either, for there were a few threads of grey in his mustache and in his brown hair which had a trick of curling slightly at the ends under his soft felt hat. Who was he? she wondered. The initials on his satchel were “M. G.,” but that told her nothing. How she hoped he was going as far as she was, she felt so safe with him, and at last, as the darkness increased and he shut up his book, she ventured to ask:

“Are you going far?”

“Yes,” he replied, with a twinkle of humor in his blue eyes, “and if none of these men get out, I am afraid I shall have to claim your forbearance all night, but I will make myself as small as possible. Look,” and with a laugh he drew himself close to the arm of the seat, leaving quite a space between them; but he did not tell her that he had engaged a berth in the sleeper, which he had abandoned when he found her there alone, with that set of roughs, whose character he knew.

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto me,” would surely be said to him some day, for he was always giving the cup of water, even to those who did not know they were thirsting until after they had drunk of what he offered them. Once he brought Maude some water in a little glass tumbler, which he took from his satchel, and once he offered her an apple which she declined lest she should seem too forward; then, as the hours crept on and her eyelids began to droop, he folded his shawl carefully and made her let him put it behind her head, suggesting that she remove her hat, as she would rest more comfortably without it.

“Now sleep quietly,” he said, and as if there were something mesmeric in his voice, Maude went to sleep at once and dreamed she was at home with her mother beside her, occasionally fixing the pillow under her head and covering her with something which added to her comfort.

It was the stranger’s light overcoat which, as the September night grew cold and chill, he put over the girl, whose upturned face he had studied as intently as she had studied his. About seven o’clock the conductor came in, lantern in hand, and as its rays fell upon the stranger, he said, “Hello, Gordon, you here? I thought you were in the sleeper. On guard, I see, as usual. Who is the lamb this time?”

“I don’t know; do you?” the man called Gordon replied.

“No,” the conductor said, turning his light full upon Maude; then, “Why, it’s a little girl the Boston conductor put in my care; but she’s safer with you. Comes from the mountains somewhere, I believe. Guess she is going to seek her fortune. She ought to find it, with that face. Isn’t she pretty?” and he glanced admiringly at the sweet young face now turned to one side, with one hand under the flushed cheek and the short rings of damp hair curling round her forehead.

“Yes, very,” Gordon replied, moving uneasily and finally holding a newspaper between Maude and the conductor’s lantern, for it did not seem right to him that any eyes except those of a near friend should take this advantage of a sleeping girl.

The conductor passed on, and then Gordon fell asleep until they reached a way station, where the sudden stopping of a train roused him to consciousness, and a moment after he was confronted by a young man, who, at sight of him, stopped short and exclaimed:

“Max Gordon, as I live! I’ve hunted creation over for you and given you up. Where have you been and why weren’t you at Long Branch, as you said you’d be when you wrote me to join you there?”

“Got tired of it, you were so long coming, so I went to the Adirondacks with Archie.”

“Did you bring me any letters?” Max replied, and his friend continued, “Yes, a cart load. Six, any way,” and he began to take them from his side pocket. “One, two, three, four, five; there’s another somewhere. Oh, here ’tis,” he said, taking out the sixth, which looked rather soiled and worn. “I suppose it’s for you,” he continued, “although it’s directed to Mr. Max Marshall, Esq., and is in a school-girl’s handwriting. It came long ago, and we chaps puzzled over it a good while; then, as no one appeared to claim it, and it was mailed at Merrivale, where your sister spends her summers, I ventured to bring it with the rest. If you were not such a saint I’d say you had been imposing a false name upon some innocent country girl, and, by George, I believe she’s here now with your ulster over her! Running off with her, eh? What will Miss Raynor say?” he went on, as his eyes fell upon Maude, who just then stirred in her sleep and murmured softly, “Our Father, who art in Heaven.”

She was at home in her little white-curtained bedroom, kneeling with her mother and saying her nightly prayer, and, involuntarily, both the young men bowed their heads as if receiving a benediction.

“I think, Dick, that your vile insinuation is answered,” Max said, and Dick rejoined, “Yes, I beg your pardon. Under your protection, I s’pose. Well, she’s safe; but I must be finding that berth of mine. Will see you in the morning. Good-night.”

He left the car, while Max Gordon tried to read his letters as best he could by the dim light near him. One was from his sister, one from Archie, three on business, while the last puzzled him a little, and he held it awhile as if uncertain as to his right to open it.

“It must be for me,” he said at last, and breaking the seal he read Maude’s letter to him, unconscious that Maude was sleeping there beside him.

Indeed, he had never heard of Maude Graham before, and had scarcely given a thought to the former owners of Spring Farm. His sister had a mortgage upon it; the man was dead; the place must be sold, and Mrs. More asked him to buy it; that was all he knew when he bid it off.

“Poor little girl,” he said to himself. “If I had known about you, I don’t believe I’d have bought the place. There was no necessity to foreclose, I am sure; but it was just like Angie; and what must this Maude think of me not to have answered her letter. I am so sorry;” and his sorrow manifested itself in an increased attention to the girl, over whom he adjusted his ulster more carefully, for the air in the car was growing very damp and chilly.

It was broad daylight when Maude awoke, starting up with a smile on her face and reminding Max of some lovely child when first aroused from sleep.

“Why, I have slept all night,” she exclaimed, as she tossed back her wavy hair; “and you have given me your shawl and ulster, too,” she added, with a blush which made her face, as Max thought, the prettiest he had ever seen.

Who was she, he wondered, and once he thought to ask her the question direct; then he tried by a little _finessing_ to find out who she was and where she came from, but Maude’s mother had so strongly impressed it upon her not to be at all communicative to strangers, that she was wholly non-committal even while suspecting his design, and when at last Canandaigua was reached he knew no more of her history than when he first saw her, white and trembling on the boat. She was going to take the Genesee stage, she said, and expected her uncle to meet her at Oak Corners in Richland.

“Why, that is funny,” he said. “If it were not that a carriage is to meet me, I should still be your fellow-traveler, for my route lies that way.”

And then he did ask her uncle’s name. She surely might tell him so much, Maude thought, and replied:

“Captain James Alling, my mother’s brother.”

Her name was not Alling, then, and reflecting that now he knew who her uncle was he could probably trace her, Max saw her into the stage, and taking her ungloved hand in his held it perhaps a trifle longer than he would have done if it had not been so very soft and white and pretty, and rested so confidingly in his, while she thanked him for his kindness. Then the stage drove away, while he stood watching it, and wondering why the morning was not quite so bright as it had been an hour ago, and why he had not asked her point-blank who she was, or had been so stupid as not to give her his card.

“Max Gordon, you certainly are getting into your dotage,” he said to himself. “A man of your age to be so interested in a little unknown girl! What would Grace say? Poor Grace. I wonder if I shall find her improved, and why she has buried herself in this part of the country.”

As he entered the hotel a thought of Maude Graham’s letter came to his mind, and calling for pen and paper he dashed off the following:

CANANDAIGUA, September —, 18—.

MISS MAUDE GRAHAM,—Your letter did not reach me until last night, when
it was brought me by a friend. I have not been in Boston since the
first of last July, and the reason it was not forwarded to me is that
you addressed it wrong, and they were in doubt as to its owner. My
name is Gordon, not Marshall, as you supposed, and I am very sorry for
your sake and your mother’s that I ever bought Spring Farm. Had I
known what I do now I should not have done so. But it is too late, and
I can only promise to keep it as you wish until you can buy it back.
You are a brave little girl and I will sell it to you cheap. I should
very much like to know you, and when I am again in Merrivale I shall
call upon you and your mother, if she will let me.

With kind regards to her I am
Yours truly,
“MAX GORDON.”

The letter finished, he folded and directed it to Miss Maude Graham, Merrivale, Mass., while she for whom it was intended was huddled up in one corner of the crowded stage and going on as fast as four fleet horses could take her towards Oak Corners and the friends awaiting her there. Thus strangely do two lives sometimes meet and cross each other and then drift widely apart; but not forever, in this instance, let us hope.