Hazel broke in impetuously, “I know all about it, Mrs. Jenks. I’m not wanted in the dining car because I’m colored. I’m traveling North as Miss Davis’s maid, and I’m to do little things for her and to play I really am a maid. She says her traveling dress hooks up the back and around the side with about a hundred hooks, and that she could never wear it except for me. And I must keep her hair smooth for her because her mother says it is always untidy--it isn’t, it’s beautiful. And I’m to fan the flies away from her when she takes a nap. As if I thought flies were on trains! But we are going to play that I am her maid, to make a game of it, because it is better to do that than to keep feeling angry. How many meals do I eat? One, two, three, four, five? This is plenty, for I can get milk and cocoa. I’m going to sleep in an upper berth, think, and climb up on a ladder! It will be great fun.” Mrs. Jenks smiled and sighed and put some cakes in the box. Miss Davis called for Hazel in a carriage, and the little girl felt very proud as she drove away with her new friend. The station was an exciting place. Hazel saw a check marked “Boston” put on her trunk and knew that home was near. She entered the Pullman car with Miss Davis and held her hand tightly as the porter showed them their seats. All her safety from insult, she knew, lay in the presence of her white companion. They sat down together and at length the train drew out of the station, headed for the North and home. The little girl looked up at her friend. “I’m trying to think all the time of Mother,” she said, “but I can’t forget Granny and Scip.” “You’ll visit them again,” Miss Davis said consolingly. “When people once begin to travel they never stop.” The journey was full of interest to Hazel, and not an unkind word was said to her during the trip. Indeed, an old lady in the seat across the aisle took a fancy to her, and sent her a big plate of ice-cream from the dining car. “Two portions, I’m sure,” Miss Davis said when she heard about it. New York was reached, a din of trolleys and elevateds and a big, beautiful station with a restaurant where everyone could sit and eat, and then Boston and home. It was night when they got off the train at the South Station, and Hazel trembled as she walked by Miss Davis’s side. If Mother should miss her! Then she saw a big black man and she rushed toward and past him and into her mother’s arms. “I waited a long time for my greeting,” said Mr. Perkins, smoothing his coat collar, “but it was satisfactory when I got it.” “Where is Miss Davis?” asked Hazel when she could look about her again. “She left her good-bye,” said Mr. Perkins; “she was hurrying to meet someone, too; perhaps it was her brother, and perhaps it wasn’t. Come, Little Frog, give me your check. I’ll look after your trunk when I’ve put you and your mother on the car. You’re coming to dine with us Sunday.”