Part Love Story, Part Travelogue Pt 2
Our
Love – Story
By Sweetheart (shared by J. Stewart)
(Part 2 - click here for other installments)
A month ago tonight you were wide awake in the Pullman, sitting up every now and then to look out at the landscape reeling away from you. All of the incidents of the day were passing before you, and you were wondering what new emotions and sights and experiences were to be yours on this first journey away from home and accompanied by only the prayers of your nearest and dearest ones. You recalled the silent trip into New York, and the parting at the station. Peggy thrust a bunch of rose-colored sweet peas into your hand which you wore ~ do you remember? ~ until they were faded beyond recognition. Celina had written you a long, cosy, train talk and tucked it between the pages of a green leather diary. Constance was there with a book and Everett, Jo’s dear old Larry ~ with a leviathan proportioned box of candy. Tho’all the young people were talking at once, warning you not to lose your heart ~ do you remember that you replied to them, “I am not afraid of my heart or of my pockbook, but I am worried about my head and my ticket” ~ you staid close close by Mother’s side where you could reach her hand and near Father and Wallace where you could catch every dear accent of the voices you wouldn’t hear for a long time. Then came the warning, “All Aboard!” You kissed everybody ~ even surprised, delighted Everett ~ and responded to Mother’s, “I put you into Divine Care, my child,” with a whirlwind embrace from which you tore yourself and hurried down the platform. Once you looked back, saw a blurred hedge of waving hands and struggled hard with a stubborn lump in your throat. There, some kind One Who Knew found your section, opened your window, murmured something that was tangled in your thinking, and left you. The train moved, your eyes cleared, and oh! You funny Other Girl ~ you opened your locket and looked hard and lovingly at Stanley’s picture. You thought of him in Scotland and wondered if he were remembering that this was the day and the hour of your journey’s beginning. Naturally enough your thoughts hurried back to his last evening with you before he sailed. Always would the memory of his kind eyes remain with you when he said, “I shall be hoping, Margaret, that you can say “Yes” when we meet in the fall; and I shall be living my yes, yes, yes all summer.” But even the most loyal and the most in love will surrender their thoughts to new surroundings and strange sights. You substituted thoughts of Stanley for wonder as to how the beds were made up and where the upper-berths were. Then you remembered some of the sleeping-car stories you had heard and imagined yourself doing all sorts of funny things through ignorance of Pullman methods. Right there you laughed that trilly laugh that you were always teased about. Out it rippled and you heard a disgusted, “Tchk” across the aisle. You looked and then encored yourself. For there sat two straight, narrow, tight-laced little old maids whose souls you just knew looked as straight and narrow and tight-laced as their bodies. Conspicuous on both black silk chests were tiny bows of white and the faces above them were expressing their owner’s contempt of anything so frivolous and young as you. Whereupon your first mission was plainly pointed out to you and you entered upon it valiantly.
“I just couldn’t help it, across-the-aisle-ladies,” you confided, “but I will try my utmost not to laugh like that again. Mother asked me to leave it in Alaska and I’ve promised to try but I rather think the natives won’t want it. You see I don’t know how to go to bed in a sleeping car and I’m awfully afraid of getting my nightie on upside-down. Wouldn’t that look funny? If you should have the same trouble, won’t you promise to call me over?” Here you discovered that the elder Miss Perkins was hopelessly poverty-stricken. For she e-nun-ci-a-ted the reply, “We do not anticipate donning our retiring wrappers in a reversed position nor shall we invite you to witness any of our preparation for the night’s repose.” Of course a proper you would have retired from the field with colors struck, but you were you and the skirmish closed with, “Well I know that you know it would look funny, and anyway I can imagine it just as well as if I saw it,” regardless of ambiguous pronouns, wherefore you turned your gaze upon the streaky landscape until you felt someone sit down beside you.