The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1872-08-30
FIVE-TEN.

aDOub 10 HOFet anu SGeppSu on
board, thankful that this movement
at least did not involve q question.
She could see for herself where she
was going.
But, when the conductor came
around uttering the magic word
which exacted the attention of full
fares and commuters alike, he look
ed at her ticket and herself with a
glance as near surprise as it was
easy for his official face to exhibit.
| What Miss Flora perceived in his
eountenance was something so like
commiseration, that, strnck by the
dart of fear in the midst of her self
congratulatiOn, she exclaimed
What is the matter"
" Were you expecting to go to
Orleans ?" the conductor asked.
al am" she said, with grammat-
ical satisfaction and emphasis.
But we go to Bushfeld."
" Very we'll"
''Due west, madam. You want to
go on the south road"
Miss Flora loked at him as though
he had spoken in a foreign tongue.
" You have made mistake" he
added "This is the $40 train. The
5:5 left on time"
4" I am going to Bushfeld, then,
whether or no, do you mean?"
The young lady loked at the car
window, and, as she did so, caught
a glimpse of the apparently not un-
interested lady who sat by her side.
" I'm afraid there is no help for
it," said the conductor, soothingly,
at the same time laying his hand on
Flora's shoulder as if to prevent her
dashing through the window, or
possibly the ventilator. Then he
ignored the ticket she was still ex-
tending toward him, and walked
on.
Miss Flora sat back in her seat
and gave herself up to reflections;
and perhaps tears stole into her eyes,
business-wom though she aspired
and assumed to be, as she thought
of poor Phil sitting in the green
wagon and watching till the last
passenger had left the train and the
station, and then disconsolately
taking his way home without pas
senger. To think of the speculations
and the fears that would torment
! the househOuld that night! O
Watt! o Fulton o Stevenson (!
How feeble you all moved in her
emergency And 0 Darius Green!
How would she have composed an
epic in your honor, for Flora had
written verses, and had been deemed
a poet at II, had you but succeeded
in making your flying machine fly !!
The lady who sat next TO Miss
Flora held a book in her hand,
which she was reading. Inferring
the desperate mood of her compan-
ion from the motionless silence into
which she had retired as soon as the
conductor had moved on, she half
closed the volume and asked:
" Have you never been to Bush
field ?"
" Never" sighed Miss Flora.
"And you have no friends there {?
Too bad"
"I never heard of the place be-
FORE"
"That is not so strange; it is
out of the world. So we, who
know all about it, are in the habit
of bOasting."
The voice of the stranger had
sy mpathy in it, and Miss Flora
now remembered that whose would
have friends must show himself
friendly.
"Can I telegraph from the
place ?" she asked.
"To New Y York you can"
" Not to Orleans?"
" Yes, by the way of New York,
probably"
But that wouldn't do; when can
| go back to town ?"
Not before tomorrow afternoon
"a milk train leaves Bushfeld at
three"
Then said Miss Flora, feeling an
urgent necessity of accounting for
herself to somebody: " I was de-
tained in spite of myself; and, when
/ got on this train, l was thankful
enough for it to have been the right
one."
Ha !" laughed her companion,
az understand YOU"
With that she returned to her
book, and, if Flora liked, and could
do it, she might sit and admire her
Whether she did this or not, she
could not we'll help receiving an
impression.
g If ever there was an emancipa-
ted woman" she thought, " here IS
such one before me-"
And, in fact, the woman did look
as if she had not a care nor a vanity
in this wicked world to trouble her.
Her mind was made up, evidently
as to most things that concerned
her, or could possibly concern her.
She was neither old nor young, nor
fiurred, nor worried, nor lazy, nor
capable of complaint. She sat
reading in her corner of the bright
red plush sofa, as if she had passed
her youth there, and might stay
there through her declining years.
But, about ten minutes before the