"What if pap ketches sight of you-all?" Judy returned nervously.

"He will not be so apt to notice me as he would you," she returned,
"even if he does catch a glimpse of me. And it can't be helped if he
does. I'll be in Chicago as quick as he will, and I know I will see Mr.
Ward first. Go on now, dear, and don't let Mr. Burns or Betty Jo see
you, and be a good girl. I feel sure that everything will be all right."

With a sudden awkward movement, poor Judy caught the old gentlewoman's
hand and pressed it to her lips; then, turning, ran toward the buggy.

When the train arrived, the station agent came to help Auntie Sue with
her handbag aboard, and she managed to keep her friend between herself
and the coaches, in case Jap Taylor should be looking from a window. As
the conductor and the agent assisted her up the steps, the agent said:
"Mind you take good care of her, Bill. Finest old lady God-Almighty
ever made! If you was to let anything happen to her, you best never show
yourself in this neighborhood again; we'd lynch you, sure!"

The conductor found a good seat for his lovely old passenger, and made
her as comfortable as possible. As he punched her ticket, he said, with
a genial smile, which was the voluntary tribute paid to Auntie Sue by
all men: "You are not much like the passengers I usually carry in this
part of the country, ma'm. They are mostly a rather rough-lookin' lot."

She smiled back at him, understanding perfectly his intended compliment.
"They are good people, though, sir,--most of them. Of course, there are
some who are a little wild, sometimes, I expect."