What Necessity Knows by Lily Dougall (read aloud .TXT) 📖

at half fare," he repeated. He was trying to see them all as he spoke.

Sophia repeated her count with terse severity.

"There was not another young lady?"

"Certainly not."

And Sophia was not a woman to be trifled with, so he punched the tickets and went back into his car.

Wooden platforms, a station hotel built of wood, innumerable lines of black rails on which freight trains stood idle, the whole place shut in by a high wooden fence--this was the prospect which met the eyes of the English travellers, and seen in the first struggling light of morning, in the bitter cold of a black frost, it was not a cheerful one. The Rexford family, however, were not considering the prospect; they were intent only on finding the warm passenger-car of the train that was to take them the rest of their journey, and which they had been assured would be waiting here to receive them.

This train, however, was not immediately to be seen, and, in the meantime, the broad platform, which was dusted over with dry frost crystals, was the scene of varied activities.

From the baggage-car of the train they had left, a great number of boxes and bags, labelled "Rexford," were being thrown down in a violent manner, which greatly distressed some of the girls and their father.

"Not that way. That is not the way. Don't you know that is not the way boxes should be handled?" shouted Captain Rexford sternly, and then, seeing that no one paid the slightest attention to his words, he was fain to turn away from the cause of his agitation. He took a brisk turn down the empty end of the platform, and stood there as a man might who felt that the many irritations of life were growing too much for his self-control.

The little boys found occupation because they observed that the white condensed vapour which came from their mouths with each breath bore great resemblance to the white steam a slowly moving engine was hissing forth. They therefore strutted in imitation of the great machine, emitting large puffs from their little warm mouths, and making the sound which a groom makes when he plies the curry-comb. The big brother was assisting in the unloading of a large carriage from an open van in the rear of the train, and Mrs. Rexford, neat, quick-moving, and excitable, after watching this operation for a few minutes and issuing several orders as to how it was to be done, moved off in lively search of the next train. She ran about, a few steps in each direction, looking at the various railway lines, and then accosted a tall, thin man who was standing still, doing nothing.

"Is the train for the Eastern Townships here? We were told it would be here waiting to receive us at daybreak. Is it here? Is it ready?"

Seeing from the man's face, as she had already seen from the empty tracks, that no such train was in readiness, she ran at one of the puffing and strutting children whose muffler was loose, and tied it up again. Then, struck by another thought, she returned to the impassive man whom she had before addressed.

"This is really the _actual_ dawn, I suppose?" she asked, with an air of importance. "I have read that in some countries there is what is called a 'false dawn' that comes before the real one, you know."

Compelled now to speak, the man, who was a New Englander, took a small stick from between his teeth and said: "As far as I know, marm, this morning is genuine."

"Oh really"--with abatement of interest in her tone--"I thought perhaps there might be that sort of thing in Canada, you know--we certainly read of Northern Lights. Very strange that our train isn't here!"

The Yankee took the trouble to reply again, hardly moving a muscle of his face. "Keep a good heart, marm; it may come along yet, a-ridin' on these same Northern Lights."

"Riding on--? I beg your pardon--on what, did you say?" she asked eagerly.

At this the grey-eyed girl who had been frightened in the night plucked her by the sleeve and pulled her away. "Don't you see he's making fun of you, mamma?"

Besides the grey-eyed girl, who wore short frocks, there were two other girls in the first bloom of young-womanhood. One of these, having overheard the conversation, ran and told the other.

"Just because we happened to read of such a thing in that book of Asiatic travel! Isn't it absurd? And there's papa fuming at the other end of the station."

Both girls giggled.

"I know _quite_ well that people will think us all crazy," urged the first speaker. Then they laughed again, not unhappily.

"There's not a doubt of it," gasped the other.

These two girls were very much alike, but one wore a red cloak and the other a blue one. In spite of the fact that they were somewhat bloused and a little grimy, and their pretty little noses were now nipped red by the icy morning, they looked attractive as they stood, pressing their handkerchiefs to their mouths and bending with laughter. The extent of their mirth was proportioned to their youth and excitement, not to the circumstances which called it forth.

The train they had left now moved off. Most of the other passengers who had alighted with them had taken themselves away in various directions, as travellers are apt to do, without any one else noticing exactly what had become of them.

Sophia, with the child in her arms, made her way to a mean waiting-room, and thither the children followed her. The mother, having at last ascertained the train would be ready in the course of time, soon came in also, and the father and brother, hearing it would not be ready for at least a quarter of an hour, went away to see the town.

There was a stove burning hotly in the small waiting-room. The only other furniture was a bench all round the wall. The family, that had entered somewhat tumultuously, almost filled it. There was only one other traveller there, a big girl with a shawl over her head and a bundle under her arm. When Sophia had come into the room alone with the baby, she had asked the girl one or two questions, and been answered civilly enough; but when the rest of the family followed, the girl relapsed into silence, and, after regarding them for a little while, she edged her way out of the room.

Mrs. Rexford, who in the excitement of change and bustle was always subject to being struck with ideas which would not have occurred to her mind at other times, suddenly remembered now that they were dependent upon the resources of the new country for domestic service, and that she had heard that no chance of securing a good servant must be lost, as they were very rare. Stating her thought hastily to Sophia, and darting to the narrow door without waiting for a reply, she stretched out her head with an ebullition of registry-office questions.

"My good girl!" she cried, "my good girl!"

The girl came back nearer the door and stood still.

"Do you happen to know of a girl about your age who can do kitchen work?"

"I don't know any one here. I'm travelling."

"But perhaps you would do for me yourself"--this half aside--"Can you make a fire, keep pots clean, and scour floors?"

"Yes." She did not express any interest in her assent.

"Where are you going? Would you not like to come with me and enter my service? I happen to be in need of just such a girl as you."

No answer.

"She doesn't understand, mamma," whispered the grey-eyed girl in a short frock, who, having wedged herself beside her mother in the narrow doorway, was the only one who could see or hear the colloquy. "Speak slower to the poor thing."

"Looks very stupid," commented Mrs. Rexford, hastily pulling in her head and speaking within the room. "But still, one must not lose a chance." Then with head again outside, she continued, "Do you understand me, my good girl? What is your name?"

"Eliza White."

"That is a very good name"--encouragingly. "Where do you live?"

"I used to live a good bit over there, in the French country." She pointed with her arm in a certain direction, but as the points of the compass had no existence for Mrs. Rexford's newly immigrated intelligence, and as all parts of Canada, near and remote, seemed very much in the same place in her nebulous vision of geography, the little information the girl had given was of no interest to her and she took little note of it.

"Did you come from Quebec just now?"

"Yes," replied the girl, after a moment's pause.

Then, in answer to further questions, she told a succinct tale. She said that her father had a farm; that he had died the week before; that she had no relatives in the place; that, having seen her father buried, she thought it best to come to an English-speaking locality, and wait there until she had time to write to her father's brother in Scotland.

"Sad, sad story! Lonely fate! Brave girl!" said Mrs. Rexford, shaking her head for a minute inside the waiting-room and rapidly repeating the tale.

"Yes, if it's true," said Sophia. But Mrs. Rexford did not hear, as she had already turned her head out of the door again, and was commending Eliza White for the course she had taken.

The grey-eyed Winifred, however, still turned inside to combat reproachfully Sophia's suspicions. "You would not doubt her word, Sophia, if you saw how cold and tired she looked."

Mrs. Rexford seemed to argue concerning the stranger's truthfulness in very much the same way, for she was saying:--

"And now, Eliza, will you be my servant? If you will come with me to Chellaston I will pay your fare, and I will take care of you until you hear from your uncle."

"I do not want to be a servant." The reply was stolidly given.

"What! do you wish to be idle?"

"I will work in your house, if you like; but I can pay my own fare in the cars, and I won't be a servant."

There was so much sullen determination in her manner that Mrs. Rexford did not attempt to argue the point.

"Take her, mamma," whispered Winifred. "How ill she seems! And she must be awfully lonely in this great country all alone."

Mrs. Rexford, having turned into the room, was rapidly commenting to Sophia. "Says she will come, but won't be called a servant, and can pay her own fare. Very peculiar--but we read, you know, in that New England book, that that was just the independent way they felt about it. They can only induce _slaves_ to be servants _there_, I believe." She gave this cursory view of the condition of affairs in the neighbouring States in an abstracted voice, and summed up her remarks by speaking out her decision in a more lively tone. "Well, we must have some one to help with the work. This girl looks strong, and her spirit in the matter signifies less." Then, turning to the girl without the door: "I think you will suit me, Eliza. You can stay with us, at any rate, till you hear from your uncle. You look strong and clean, and I'm _sure_ you'll do your best to please me"--this with