His fears were soon dispelled, for Jane turned toward him with a tender
light in her beautiful dark eyes. "Brother," she said, "I have just been
wondering how I can communicate with Marion Starr. She expects to meet me
at the Central Station at four. It is now nearly noon. I should have left
some message for her."
"We must send a telegram to her home when we reach Albany, or sooner, if
we make a stop. I'll ask the conductor. Suppose you write out what you
wish to say." And so Jane took from her valise the very same little
leather covered notebook in which, less than a week before, she had
written a list of the things she would need for a wardrobe to be worn at
the fashionable summer resort at Newport.
Of this Jane did not even think as she wrote, after a thoughtful moment,
the ten words that were needed to tell her best friend that she was on
her way West with her brother Dan, who was ill and who needed her.
The conductor took the message and said that he expected to have an
opportunity to send a telegram in a very short time. The train soon
stopped at a village, where it was evidently flagged, and the young
people saw the station master running from the depot waving a yellow
envelope. The conductor received it, at the same time giving him the
paper on which Jane's message was written. "Please send this at once."
The sound of his voice came to them through Gerald's window. Then the
train started again and had acquired its former speed when the kindly
conductor entered their car. He was reading the telegram he had just
received. Stopping at their seats, he asked: "Are you Daniel Abbott,
accompanied by Jane, Julie and Gerald?"
"We are," the tall lad replied in his friendly manner. "Have you a
message from our father?"
The conductor shook his head. "No, not that. This telegram is from the
president of the railroad telling us that four young people named Abbott
are his guests, and he wishes them to receive every courtesy, and now, as
it is noon, if you will come with me, I will escort you to the diner."
"Oh, but I'm glad," Julie, who treated everyone with frank friendliness,
smiled brightly up into the face of the man whom she just knew must be a
father, he had such kind, understanding eyes. "I'm awful hungry; aren't
you, Gerry?" she whispered, a moment later, as they filed down the aisle
in procession, the conductor first, Jane next, with Dan at the end as
rear guard. Julie tittered and Jane turned to frown at her. Gerry poked
his young sister with the reminder, "Pretend she smiled."
But frowns could not squelch Julie's exuberance when they were seated
about a table in the dining car, which was rapidly filling with their
fellow travelers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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