CHAPTER XI

A GREAT DEAL THAT IS NEW

Oriole Putnam knew ships and shipping much better than did most girls of her age. But traveling on the railroad for any distance was an entirely new experience. Even the twins, Myron and Marian Langdon, could remember about their journey eastward from Montana, and were more familiar with the Pullman car and the stateroom the party occupied, and other traveling conveniences, than was the girl from the sea.

But Oriole was greatly interested from the start of the journey from Littleport. Of course, they did not get into the fine vestibuled train until they left Boston. Before that, however, Oriole had begun to see and wonder at many new things.

In the first place, she met for the first time since she had recovered the twins' nurse, Sadie Brown. Miss Brown had no remembrance of Oriole, although the latter had aided Nat Jardin in rescuing the poor woman from the wreck of the Portland steamboat.

Sadie Brown had heard all about Oriole from Harvey Langdon and she was eager to meet and to thank Oriole. The latter felt somewhat embarrassed, Nurse Brown made so much of her share in her rescue from the wreck. But fortunately it was the first meeting the twins had had with "Nursie" since their separation from her, and their vociferous welcome of the woman relieved Oriole's embarrassment to some degree.

"You look like a very capable, up-and-coming sort of girl, I must say," said the nurse, who was a product of the West herself and a very frank person. "I am going to like you, Oriole Putnam, aside from the fact that without you and that wonderful old man Mr. Langdon tells me about, I might not be here now."

"Oh, Miss Brown," Oriole murmured, "Uncle Nat Jardin _is_ wonderful. Indeed he is."

"I shouldn't be surprised. And you are a little wonder yourself, child," laughed Miss Brown, hugging the girl. "Their father says the improvement in the twins is partly due to your influence. The dear little things! How mad I must have been at the time of that wreck. I can't even remember what happened after the stewardess ran through the cabin screaming 'We are sinking!' until I awoke in the hospital with Mr. Langdon beside me, and learned that long months had elapsed.

"Well, this is a strange world. I had promised Mr. Langdon to take every care of Myron and Marian when we started East to see their grandparents. But we never know what is going to happen to us, do we?"

"I am sure we do not, Miss Brown," Oriole agreed very earnestly. "My dear mamma and I did not dream when we went to sea in the _Helvetia_ that we were to be separated, and that my dear father would be--be lost----"

Oriole choked up here, and could say no more. Nurse Brown patted her hand.

"Mr. Langdon has told me all about that," she said to the troubled girl quietly. "Even now there is some hope. Especially hope of the return of your mother. Nothing can be stranger than my own case, child. I had lost all memory of my past, for months. And I am well and strong again. So have hope."

Oriole did have hope--a deal of it. She tried every time she thought of her dear mother to think of her as alive. Dear daddy was gone. She felt quite convinced of that. But he had never meant so much to her as "Sister."

She and her mother had called each other that even when Oriole was very little. That was because there had been no other children about for Oriole to play with (the Portuguese-Brazilian children who were her neighbors did not count in Oriole's mind) and it made it seem less lonely for the little girl if mother played at being a companion of her own age.

Why, they had even played dolls together! Oriole had loved her family of dolls very much. But because they had been lost when she so hastily left the _Helvetia_ after the collision, she had never cared for others. Her doll family had been the equal care and joy of "Sister" and herself. Oriole determined to remember or think only of her dear one as in health and strength--no matter how far away she was, geographically speaking.

However, even Sadie Brown's remarks did not make the interested Oriole dwell at present upon the misfortune of her loss. There was too much new in this journey to interest her.

After meeting Nurse Brown at the Junction the party went on to Boston and there boarded the west-bound train in the evening. They pulled out of the great station at late dinner time, and even the twins were allowed to go into the brilliantly lighted dining car for the evening meal.

"It is just like a narrow ship's saloon-cabin," declared Oriole. "And what nice colored men to wait on the table! We had colored men on the _Helvetia_; but on the _Adrian Marple_ they were Italians. And _they_ were nice too. Of course, 'most everybody aboard ship is always nice to you."

"I imagine," chuckled Harvey Langdon, "that most people are nice to Oriole Putnam everywhere. These waiters are all white teeth and white eyes when they look at you. Isn't that a fact, Nurse?"

"It would be hard to turn a sour face on the girl, Mr. Langdon," replied Miss Brown, who was looking after the needs of Myron and Marian.

They went back to the stateroom--at least, Nurse Brown and Oriole and the twins did--and Myron and Marian were put to bed in the end berths. Nurse Brown and Oriole took the side berths, while Mr. Langdon of course had his berth in another part of the car.

The swing of the car over the rails and the hum of the wheels Oriole thought very soothing after she got to bed. She had no more fear of wreck or disaster than she had had at sea. Indeed, it merely seemed as though she were sleeping in a swing.

She went to sleep finally with this thought in her mind. And whatever happened to the train--how it was stopped, started, or otherwise was run--did not disturb her slumber in the least. But at daybreak she awoke. Not for any outside reason, it seemed; but just because she had had sleep enough.

The train was standing still. There was a narrow window just above her eyes, but across the compartment. She rose up and leaned on her elbow to look out. The narrow panel-window was open and in the twilight of early morning she could observe the fact that right beside her train was another.

This other train was not a limited express, however, made up for the most part of Pullmans. No, indeed! It was the odor that assailed her nostrils through the open window that first apprised Oriole of the nature of the car that stood on the other track right beside this sleeping coach in which the girl lay.

"Why!" murmured the girl, "it--it smells just like our old muley cow's stable on Harbor Island. I declare! it must be a cattle car. No!" as a sleek, handsome head, with erect ears, came into view through a narrow aperture in the other car, "it's a horse car!"

Then she burst into a smothered giggle, for this sounded funny to Oriole. It was not a _horse car_. She had seen one of those ancient vehicles in one of the shore towns near Littleport. This car on the next track was a car in which horses traveled, not one which horses drew!

She could occasionally see the glossy coat or intelligent head of one of the horses in the car. There was somebody with the animals too. A voice said:

"Step over there! Whoa!"

And that voice quite startled Oriole Putnam. She peered through the narrow window to see if she could see more. Why, the voice sounded just as familiar! Who that she knew could possibly be with those horses on the siding?

She told herself that her hearing had deceived her. Yet she continued to listen and peer through the aperture. A voice she knew! She tried to think who it could be. Surely nobody she had known at Littleport could be traveling with horses in that cattle car.

Was it somebody she had known previous to her coming to Harbor Light? Somebody she had met on shipboard? Even some person Oriole had been acquainted with away down in Brazil where she had lived with her mother and father?

She heard the voice again, and with another shock--a real shock--realized that it was a boy's voice, not a man's.

Oriole swung her feet out of the berth and slid quietly to the floor. She crossed the stateroom and stood on the bench there to look through the window. The keen air of out-of-doors made her shiver, but she did not withdraw for a long moment.

In that moment she saw the very strangest thing! Right across from her car--not exactly opposite the window, but a little further along--was the side door of the stock car. It was a slatted door and she could see in between the slats.

Standing there against the door, with his back toward her, a tight cap pulled down over his curls, was a boy that looked very much indeed like Teddy Ford!

Oriole drew back with a little gasp and huddled quickly into her warm robe that Mr. Langdon had bought for her. She slipped her feet into downy slippers. All the time she kept saying under her breath:

"Oh, it can't be--it just _can't_ be! I cannot believe it is Teddy Ford. How would he get here?"

She went to peep again. He had disappeared. Yet she could not overcome the feeling that the handsome boy she had known such a little time at Harbor Island was right in the very next car!

"I know what I'll do," murmured Oriole. "I'll wash my face and comb my hair and get dressed quickly. Then I'll run out on the platform and call him. I wonder how long this old train will wait here?"

She made her toilet as quickly as possible and then put on her fur-trimmed coat and tam o' shanter. When she appeared in the car corridor the black porter gazed upon her in amazement.

"Yo' surely is an early riser, Missy," he said, displaying all his teeth. "Yo' ticket don't call for yo' gettin' up so early. We ain't got to Chicago yet--an' de way it looks we won't git there right soon."

"Then I can go out of the car?" asked Oriole eagerly.

"Well, it might be safe enough, but I dunno. I'd better ask the conductor, Missy. She might start sudden like an' leave you."

"Oh!" cried Oriole, "I wouldn't like that at all. But there is somebody in that train standing right next to this one that I think I know. I--I want to talk to him."

"Bless yo', Missy!" exclaimed the porter, "that's a stock train. Leastways, that car is full o' horses--race horses. They're likely being took to Bowlin' Green, or some sech place. I's Kentucky bred myself, Missy, an' I's allus int'rested in racin' stock. So I took note ob dat car. Yes'm."

He smiled affably and accompanied her into the vestibule. He opened the door overlooking the freight track on which the stock car stood. Oriole put out her head. She could see the slatted door of the stock car. She opened her lips to call Teddy Ford's name.

And just then, with a sudden lurch and bump, the Pullman train started!