Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction; Families -- Juvenile fiction; Girls -- Juvenile fiction
"I'll be very glad if you will, child,--I've no desire to climb up there.
Ugh, I don't think I can sleep anywhere on this bobbety-bobble train."
Then the porter brought a small step-ladder, and this delighted Patty
beyond measure.
"Ho!" said she, "now I'm 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' 'A-hitchet, a-hatchet,
a-up I go'!" and with two jumps and a spring she landed in the upper berth.
"Now," she said to herself, "I know how Alice felt when she grew so large
that she filled up the whole room. Let me see, what did she do? She put one
arm out the window and one foot up the chimney. Well, I can't do that, and
I don't see any little cakes to eat, as she did, that will make me grow
smaller, so I s'pose I'll just have to scrounch around till I'm ready for
bed, and then slide in. I'm sure I shan't sleep, it's all so noisy and
exciting."
But when she finally straightened herself out on the coarse,
cinder-sprinkled linen of the Pullman, the chink-a-chunk of the train
changed to a lullaby, and in about two minutes Patty was sound asleep.
CHAPTER III
NEW FRIENDS
It was about four o'clock the next afternoon when the train came puffing
into the great train-shed in Jersey City.
It had passed through Elmbridge about an hour before, but being an express
train, it made no stop at such small places.
So Mr. St. Clair had arranged to meet Patty at Jersey City and take her
back home with him.
Patty recognized her uncle as soon as he entered the car, and ran to greet
him.
"Howdy, Uncle Robert," she said, in her pretty southern way, "are you
looking for me?"
"I am, if you're little Patty Fairfield. But you've grown so since I saw
you that I think I shall have to ask for your credentials."
Patty laughed, and answered: "My credentials are that I remember the doll
and the candy you brought me five years ago, and I just _know_ you're my
Uncle Robert."
"I am indeed, and I've come to carry you off to a lot of other admiring
relatives."
Then Patty introduced Miss Powers, and after gathering up the various wraps
and bags they all left the train. Miss Powers was to cross the ferry to New
York, so Patty and Uncle Robert escorted her to the ferry-boat and bade her
good-bye, with many thanks for her kind care of the little girl during the
journey.
Then Uncle Robert said: "Now we'll go out to Elmbridge as quick as we can
skip, but first we must pick up Ethelyn, whom I left in the waiting-room."
"Oh, is Ethelyn here?" cried Patty. "I am so glad, I'm just crazy to see
her."
Apparently Ethelyn was crazy too, for she flew at her cousin as soon as she
entered the door.
"You dear thing!" she exclaimed, "I'm so delighted to see you. Oh, how
pretty you are! We'll be awfully good chums, won't we?"
"I'm sure we shall," replied Patty, who was just a wee bit frightened by
this dashing young cousin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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