"Town"


It was June, and a little past sunrise, but there was no hint of early
summer freshness in the noxious air of the sleeping-car as it toiled like
a snail over the infinity of prairie. From behind the green-striped
curtains of the berths, now the sound of restless turning and now a
long-drawn sigh signified the uneasy slumber due to stifling air and
discomfort.

The only passenger stirring was a girl whose youth drooped under the
unfavorable influences of foul air, fatigue, and a strained anxiety to
come to the end of this fateful journey. She had been up while it was yet
dark, and her hand—luggage, locked, strapped, and as pitifully new at the
art of travelling as the girl herself, clustered about the hem of her blue
serge skirt like chicks about a hen. The engine shrieked, but its voice
sounded weak and far off in that still ocean of space; the girl tightened
her grasp on the largest of the satchels and looked at the approaching
porter tentatively.

"We’re late twenty-fi’e minutes," he reassured her, with the hopeless
patience of one who has lost heart in curbing travellers’ enthusiasms.

She turned towards the window a pair of shoulders plainly significant of
the burdensome last straw.

"Four days and nights in this train"—they were slower in those days—"and
now this extra twenty-five minutes!"