In the confusion caused by passengers entering the car with porters carrying their luggage, Gerald managed to draw Julie aside and whisper to her: “Don’t let on we didn’t want Jane, not on your life! Dan wanted her, and this journey’s got just one object, Dad says, and that’s to help Dan get well.”
But Julie was too terribly disappointed to pretend that she was not. “I know all that,” she half sobbed and turned toward the window across the aisle, “but I was so happy when I s’posed I was to cook for Dan, and when you and I were to be the ones to take care of him. But now Jane will get all the honor and everything, and we’ll have to be bossed around worse than if we were at home, for Dad’s there to take our part.”
Gerald’s clear hazel eyes gazed at his sister rebukingly. “Julie,” he said, with an earnestness far beyond his years, “the train hasn’t started yet and if you’n I are going to think of ourselves we’d better go back home. Shall we, Julie?”
The little girl shook her head vigorously. “No, no. I don’t want to go home.” She clung to the back of a seat as though she feared she were going to be taken forcibly from the train.
Gerald leaned over to whisper to her, but he first gave her a little kiss on the ear, then he said: “Julie, you’n I will have oodles of fun up there in the mountains. If Jane isn’t too snappish, I’ll be glad she’s along, because, of course, she’ll be able to take care of Dan better than we could.” Then suddenly he laughed gleefully.
“I’ve got it!” he confided to the girl, who had looked around curiously. She could not imagine how Gerald could laugh when such a tragic thing had happened. “You’re dippy about pretending, Julie. You once said you could pretend anything you wanted to, and make it seem real. Well, here’s your chance. Every time Jane is snappy, pretend she has said something pleasant. That’ll be a hard one, but for Dan’s sake, I’m willing to give it a try.”
Julie’s mania had always been “pretending,” and she had often wished that Gerald would play it with her, but he was a matter-of-fact sort of a lad, and his reply had been that real things were fun enough for him. The little girl’s face brightened. At last her brother was willing to play her favorite game.
“That will be a hard one,” she agreed. Then, as she was lunged against the boy, she also laughed. “Oh, goodie!” she whispered. “Now the train is really started – nobody can send us back home. Honest, I was skeered Jane might want to. She thinks we’re so terribly in the way.”
Happy as Dan was, because the sister he so loved was to accompany him to the West, he did not forget the two who had been willing to go with him and care for him in the beginning, and, as soon as the train was well under way, he called to the children. “Come here, Julie. I’ve saved the window side of my seat for you, and I’m sure Jane will let Gerald sit by the window on her seat. Now, isn’t this jolly?”
The children wedged into the places toward which he was beckoning them. Julie glanced almost fearfully up at the older girl she had accidentally jostled in passing, but Jane was gazing out of the window deep in dreams. Dan noticed his sister-pal’s expression. How he hoped she was not regretting her hasty decision.
His fears were soon dispelled, for Jane turned toward him with a tender light in her beautiful dark eyes. “Brother,” she said, “I have just been wondering how I can communicate with Marion Starr. She expects to meet me at the Central Station at four. It is now nearly noon. I should have left some message for her.”
“We must send a telegram to her home when we reach Albany, or sooner, if we make a stop. I’ll ask the conductor. Suppose you write out what you wish to say.” And so Jane took from her valise the very same little leather covered notebook in which, less than a week before, she had written a list of the things she would need for a wardrobe to be worn at the fashionable summer resort at Newport.
Of this Jane did not even think as she wrote, after a thoughtful moment, the ten words that were needed to tell her best friend that she was on her way West with her brother Dan, who was ill and who needed her.
The conductor took the message and said that he expected to have an opportunity to send a telegram in a very short time. The train soon stopped at a village, where it was evidently flagged, and the young people saw the station master running from the depot waving a yellow envelope. The conductor received it, at the same time giving him the paper on which Jane’s message was written. “Please send this at once.” The sound of his voice came to them through Gerald’s window. Then the train started again and had acquired its former speed when the kindly conductor entered their car. He was reading the telegram he had just received. Stopping at their seats, he asked: “Are you Daniel Abbott, accompanied by Jane, Julie and Gerald?”
“We are,” the tall lad replied in his friendly manner. “Have you a message from our father?”
The conductor shook his head. “No, not that. This telegram is from the president of the railroad telling us that four young people named Abbott are his guests, and he wishes them to receive every courtesy, and now, as it is noon, if you will come with me, I will escort you to the diner.”
“Oh, but I’m glad,” Julie, who treated everyone with frank friendliness, smiled brightly up into the face of the man whom she just knew must be a father, he had such kind, understanding eyes. “I’m awful hungry; aren’t you, Gerry?” she whispered, a moment later, as they filed down the aisle in procession, the conductor first, Jane next, with Dan at the end as rear guard. Julie tittered and Jane turned to frown at her. Gerry poked his young sister with the reminder, “Pretend she smiled.”
But frowns could not squelch Julie’s exuberance when they were seated about a table in the dining car, which was rapidly filling with their fellow travelers.
“Ohee, isn’t this the jolliest? I’m going to pretend I’m a princess and – ” But the small girl paused and listened. The head waiter was addressing Jane. “As guests of Mr. Bethel’s,” he told them, “you may select whatever you wish from the menu. Kindly write out your orders.” He handed them each an order slip and a pencil and then went on to another table. Julie gave a little bounce of joy. The “real” was so wonderful, she would not have to pretend. She and Gerald bowed their heads over a typed menu; and then they began to scribble. Dan, glancing across at them, smiled good naturedly. “What are you doing, kiddies, copying the entire menu?” he asked. But Jane remarked rebukingly, “Julie Abbott, do you wish people to think that you have been starved at home? Tear those up at once. Here are two others. If you can’t make them out properly, I’ll do it for you.”
Dan saw a rebellious expression in Julie’s eyes, so he suggested, “Let them try once more, Jane. They can’t learn any younger. Just order a few things at first, Gerry, and then, if you are still hungry, you can have more.”
Such a jolly time as the children had! When the train turned sharply at a curve and the dishes slid about, Julie laughed outright. She purposely did not look at Jane. She could pretend her big sister was smiling easier, if she didn’t see the frown. But their fun was just beginning.
CHAPTER IX
TELEGRAMS
Although the children were greatly interested in all they saw, nothing of an unusual nature had occurred, when, early one morning they reached Chicago.
The kindly conductor directed them to the other train that would bear them to their destination, assuring them that on it, also, they would be guests of Mr. Bethel.
The four young people were standing on the outer edge of the hurrying throng, gazing about them with interest (as several hours would elapse before the departure of the west-bound train), when Jane was sure that she heard their name being called through a megaphone.
“It’s that man in uniform over by the gates. He’s calling ‘Telegram for Jane Abbott!’” Gerald told her. “May I go get it, Dan? May I?”
The older boy nodded and the younger pushed through the crowd, the others following more slowly. Very quickly Gerald returned, waving two yellow envelopes. One was a night letter from Marion