Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado LifeJackson, Helen Hunt
History
Nelly's Silver Mine: A Story of Colorado Life
Jackson, Helen Hunt
Colorado -- History -- To 1876 -- Juvenile fiction
Most of the sleeping-cars have merely shelves along the sides in the
place where the seats are in the ordinary day-cars: curtains are
hung in front of these shelves, and they are parted off from each
other like the shelves in a long cupboard. In the daytime, these
shelves are folded away and fastened up against the walls, and seats
left below them. At night when people are ready to go to bed, the
shelves are let down, and the curtains put up in front of them, and
each person climbs up on his shelf, and undresses behind the
curtain, and goes to bed. I forgot to say that a very good little
bed is made up on each shelf. A man who has the care of the car, and
who is called the porter, makes these beds. This is the way it is in
nearly all the sleeping-cars. But there are some cars which have,
besides these, a nice little room walled off at one end. It has
seats for two people on each side; and these seats are made into
comfortable beds at night. It has two windows which open on the
outside of the car, and two which open on the narrow aisle of the
car; these four windows are all your own, if you have hired the
whole little room for yourself. You can have them either open or
shut, just as you like, and nobody else has any right to say any
thing about it, which is a great comfort; in the ordinary car, you
know there is always somebody just behind you or just before you who
is either too hot or too cold, and wants the windows shut when you
want them open, or open when you want them shut. This little room
has a door at each end of it. One opens into the car where the rest
of the people are sitting. The other opens into a nice little closet
where there is a washbowl and water, and you can take a bath
comfortably. At night the porter comes and hangs up curtains across
these doors, because they have glass in the tops of them; then he
draws the curtains at your windows; then he lights a lamp which
hangs in the middle of the ceiling in your room: and there you are
shut up in as cunning a little bedroom as you would ever want to
see; and almost as snug and private as you could be in your own
bedroom. You can undress and go to bed comfortably; and, unless the
jolting of the car keeps you awake, you can sleep all night as
soundly as you would at home.
Rob and Nelly were delighted with this little room. So was Mrs.
March. She hung up their cloaks and hats on the hooks, and took out
their books and papers, and made the little room look like home.
Nelly propped Mrs. Napoleon up in one corner of one of the red
velvet arm-chairs, and took off her blue veils, for there seemed to
be no dust at all.
"I wish I'd brought Pocahontas too," said Nelly: "there is so much
room, and dolls do look so nice travelling like other people."
"People!" laughed Rob. "Dolls ain't people."
"They are too," said Nelly. "People are men and women, and there are
boy dolls and girl dolls and women dolls and men dolls."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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