Mary Ware in TexasJohnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
General
Mary Ware in Texas
Johnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows)
Texas -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
On her way in she had passed through the waiting-room and given a hasty
look around to see if Phil were ahead of her. Glancing up at the clock
she found that she had ten minutes to spare. Three of these passed in
getting settled and in taking an inventory of her fellow-passengers.
Then she began to hang out of the window and anxiously watch the
waiting-room door. She was growing uneasy. Maybe the clerk _had_
forgotten to call him. Maybe he _was_ "slumbering still," as Gay had
prophesied. He might have missed the car he should have taken, or there
might be a tie-up somewhere along the line.
A colored man hurried into the coach with a chunk of ice for the water
cooler. The conductor came down the platform looking at his watch, and
signalled something to a brakeman. Mary put her head out of the window
again and looked anxiously up and down, whispering in a flutter of
nervousness, "Oh, _why_ doesn't he come? Why _doesn't_ he come? There's
only a minute or two left and there won't be time for a word."
She would not admit the possibility of his not coming at all, until she
heard the warning, "All aboard!" the ringing of the engine bell, and
felt the jerk and jar which proclaimed all too plainly that the car was
in motion. She was so disappointed that she could hardly keep the tears
back. Her last thought before falling asleep the night before and the
first one on awakening had been that she was going to see the "Best Man"
by himself a few moments, without any talkative Roberta to absorb his
attention, or any other people to run away with the conversation.
It was a very disconsolate little face that turned towards the open
window to hide its disappointment from possibly curious neighbors. She
found it hard to wink the tears back when she was so deeply, grievously
disappointed. Her back was turned resolutely towards the aisle and her
arms were crossed on the window-sill. In that position she could not see
the rear door of the car open and some one come in from the back
platform. He stood a moment, his hat in one hand and a suit-case in the
other, breathing fast as if he had been running. Then after a searching
glance through the car, he went directly down the aisle and stopped
beside Mary's seat. Her attitude, even to the droop of her hat-brim,
proclaimed her dejection so clearly that a smile twitched the corners of
his mouth. Then he said in a deep voice, so deep that it was fairly
sepulchral, "I beg pardon, Miss. May I occupy this end of the seat?"
Startled by the strange voice so near, she turned a very sober and
unsmiling face to see what manner of person had accosted her. Then she
exclaimed, in astonishment, "Why, Phil Tremont! How ever did you get on
without my seeing you? I looked and looked and thought you must have
gotten left!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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