Hesba Stretton - The Ultimate Christmas Library - 100+ Authors, 200 Novels, Novellas, Stories, Poems and Carols

“All right, Miz’ Morton,” agreed Mr. Snubbins, briskly.

Nan felt some diffidence in accepting the good woman’s hospitality. She whispered again to Bess:

“Shall we stay? They’re in such trouble.”

“But goodness!” interrupted Bess. “I’m hungry. And we want to get her interested in the kiddies aboard the train.”

“Yes, that’s so,” agreed Nan.

“Come, girls,” Mrs. Morton called from the other room. “Come right in and lay off your things— do. You are pretty dears— both of you. City girls, I’spect?”

“No, ma’am,” Nan replied. “We live in a small town when we are at home. But we’ve been to boarding school and are on our way home for Christmas.”

“And after that,” Bess added briskly, “we’re going to Chicago for two— whole— weeks!”

“You air? Well, well! D’you hear that, Peke?” as her husband came heavily into the room.

“What is it, Maw?”

“These girls are going to Chicago. If our Sallie and Si’s Celia have gone there, mebbe these girls might come across them.”

“Oh, Mrs. Morton!” cried Nan. “If we do, we will surely send them home to you. Or, if they are foolish enough not to want to come, we’ll let you know at once where they are.”

“Of course we will,” agreed Bess.

“If you only had a picture of your daughter?” suggested Nan.

“Of Sallie? Why, we have,” said Mrs. Morton. “She’s some bigger now; but she had her photographt took in several ‘poses’, as they call ’em, when she was playin’ in that ‘Rural Beauty’. I got the prints myself from the man that took ’em.”

But when she hunted for the pictures, Mrs. Morton found they were missing. “I declare for’t!” she said, quite vexed. “I do believe that Sallie took ’em with her to show to folks she expects to ask for work. Jest like her! Oh, she’s smart, Sallie is.”

“There’s that picter she had took the time we went to the County Fair, three year ago, Maw,” suggested Mr. Morton, as they prepared to sit down to the bountiful table. “I ’low she’s filled out some since then; she was as leggy as a colt. But these gals can see what she looks like in the face.”

While he was speaking his wife brought forth the family album— a green plush affair with a huge gilt horseshoe on the cover. She turned over the leaves till she found Sallie’s photograph, and displayed it with pride. Nan secretly thought her father’s description of Sallie at twelve years old or so was a very good one; but Mrs. Morton evidently saw no defects in her child’s personal appearance.

“Sallie wore her hair in curls then, you see,” said Mrs. Morton. “But she says they ain’t fashionable now, and she’s been windin’ her braids into eartabs like that leadin’ lady in the movie company done. Makes Sallie look dreadfully growed up,” sighed the troubled woman. “I sartainly do hate to see my little girl change into a woman so quick.”

“That’s what my woman says,” agreed Snubbins. “Celia’s ’bout growed up, she thinks. But I reckon if her mother laid her across her lap like she uster a few years back, she could nigh about slap most of the foolishness out o’ Celia. Gals nowadays git to feel too big for their boots— that’s what the matter.”

“Mercy!” gasped Bess. “I hope my mother won’t go back to first principles with me, if I displease her. And I’m sure your Celia can’t be really bad.”

“Just foolish— just foolish, both on ’em,” Mr. Morton said. “Let me help you again.”

“Oh, I’m so full,” sighed Bess.

“I’m afraid ye ain’t makin’ out a supper,” Mrs. Morton said.

“Indeed we are,” cried Nan. “I only wish the children on that snow-bound train had some of these good things.”

This turned the current of conversation and the Mortons were soon interested in the girls’ story of the castaways in the snow. Mrs. Morton set to work at once and packed two big baskets with food. A whole ham that she had boiled that day was made into sandwiches. There were hard boiled eggs, and smoked beef and cookies, pies and cakes. In fact, the good woman stripped her pantry for the needy people in the stalled train.

Her husband got into his outer garments and helped Si Snubbins carry the baskets across the snow. Mrs. Morton’s last words to the girls were:

“Do, do , my dears, try to find my girl and Celia when you go to Chicago.”

Nan and Bess promised to do so, for neither realized what a great city Chicago is, and that people might live there, almost side by side, for years and never meet.

“What do you think of those two girls, anyway, Nan?” Bess Harley asked.

This was late in the evening, after the porter had made up their berths again in the Pullman. The baskets of food had been welcomed by the snow-bound passengers with acclaim. The two girls were thanked more warmly for their thoughtfulness than Nan and Bess believed they really deserved.

Bess Harley’s question, of course, referred to Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins, the girls who had run away from home to become moving picture actresses. Nan replied to her chum’s query:

“That Sallie Morton must be a very silly girl indeed to leave such a comfortable home and such a lovely mother. Perhaps Celia Snubbins may not have been so pleasantly situated; but I am sure she had no reason for running away.”

Bess sighed. “Well,” she murmured, “it must be great fun to work for the movies. Just think of those two country girls appearing in a five-reel film like ‘A Rural Beauty.’”

“Well, for goodness’ sake, Bess Harley!” cried Nan, astonished, “have you been bitten by that bug?”

“Don’t call it ’bug’– that sounds so common,” objected Bess. “Call it ‘bacilli of the motion picture.’ It must be great ,” she added emphatically, “to see yourself acting on the screen!”

“I guess so,” Nan said, with a laugh. “A whole lot those two foolish girls acted in that ‘Rural Beauty’ picture. They were probably two of the ‘merry villagers’ who helped to make a background for the real actresses. You know very well, Bess, that girls like us wouldn’t be hired by any film company for anything important.”

“Why— you know, Nan,” her chum said, “that some of the most highly paid film people are young girls.”

“Yes. But they are particularly fitted for the work. Do you feel the genius of a movie actress burning in you?” scoffed Nan.

“No-o,” admitted Bess. “I think it is that hard boiled egg I ate. And it doesn’t exactly burn.”

Nan went off in a gale of laughter at this, and stage-struck Bess chimed in. “I don’t care,” the latter repeated, the last thing before they climbed into their respective berths, “it must be oodles of fun to work for the movies.”

While the chums slept there were great doings outside the snow-bound train. The crew turned out with shovels, farmers in the neighborhood helped, and part of a lately arrived section gang joined in to shovel the snow away from the stalled engine and train.

Cordwood had been bought of Peleg Morton and hauled over to the locomotive for fuel. With this the engineer and fireman managed to make sufficient steam to heat the Pullman coach and the smoking car. Nan and Bess had brought little “Buster,” as the spaniel had been named, into their section and, having been fed and made warm, he gave the girls hardly any trouble during the night.

Selfish Mr. Bulson, who had shipped the puppy home to his little boy, seemed to have no interest whatsoever in Buster’s welfare.

It was not until the great snow-plow and a special locomotive appeared the next morning, and towed the stalled train on to its destination, and Nan Sherwood and her chum arrived at Tillbury, that Nan learned anything more regarding Mr. Ravell Bulson.