“All that flushed face an’ shiny eyes is ‘ca’se she’s goin’ to Amos,” remarked a woman who held a little bare-footed boy by the hand. The woman addressed was an unmarried woman old enough to be a grandmother. She looked at the widow’s beaming visage, gave her head a significant toss, and said, contemptuously: “I say! That woman ain’t a-thinkin’ no more ’bout Amos ‘an I am at this minute. It looks to me like some people can’t see a inch before their faces. My Lor’, you make me laugh, Mis’ Ruggles.” Arriving at the station, Joel turned the widow’s trunk over to the baggage-master, and with her carpet-bag and his own clutched in one hand, he stood on the platform pulling his beard nervously. “We ’ll have to spend one night on the train,” he said. “I never thought to mention it, but they tell me that a body kin, by payin’ a fraction more, git a place to lie down and stretch out, an’ snooze a bit.” The widow seemed to have made up her mind that she would not show crude astonishment at anything new to her experience, but her curiosity finally caused her to admit that she had never heard of such an arrangement. So, to the best of his ability, the storekeeper entered into a description of a sleeping-car, lowering the carpet-bags to the platform, and making signs and drawing imaginary lines with his hands. “Men an’ women in the same car with jest curtains stretched betwixt?” she cried. “No, thank you! I won’t make a fool o’ myse’f if other women does. I kin set up fer one night easy enough, I reckon. I’ve done the like many a time with the sick an’ the dead without feeling the wuss fer it.” “I hardly ‘lowed it would suit,” stammered Joel, “but I thought thar would be no harm in givin’ you yore choice.” “Not the least in the world, Joel;” and then she paled, caught her breath, and grabbed her carpet-bag, for the people on the platform were hurrying about; the train was coming. III |In the train they found a seat together, and when the locomotive shrieked and they dashed off through deep cuts and over high trestles, Mrs. Gibbs was unable to control her excitement. He saw that she was holding tightly to the arm of the seat. “I have never been on sech a fast one before,” she said, tremulously. “She don’t whiz nigh like some I’ve rid on out West,” replied Joel, with an air of conscious importance, even guardianship. A few minutes later she grew calmer. Happening to catch her eye, he saw that her mind was far away. “I was jest a-thinkin’ how awful it is to be leavin’ Susie’s grave so fur behind,” she said. “I’m goin’ to Amos, but my other child is back thar.” “I was thinkin’ about Rachel’s grave jest a minute ago,” he returned. “You called ’er to my mind jest now. Somehow you have the same sort of a look about the eyes.” “Shucks! that ain’t so, I know!” “It’s true as I live!” “Well, she was a good woman.” “The best I ever run across, an’ knowed rail well.”