The Advocate and news., 1898-04-20

WeIc bl6dIuUOhlS WulCu went up anu
down the river carrying freight from
town 10 town, and he also told him that
the river was the Mississippi
It was a very nice car Tom was In.
The floor was Carpeted, the walls were Of
carved and polished wood and there were
looking glasses everywhere, even In the
doors. The people in the car looked very
nice. The ladies dressed beautifully
Tom wondered II any of them had boys
Of their own. He thought they must be
very grand, rich ladies to dress so fine,
and he watched them over the back of his
seat, but lodged down behind II any Of
them Chanced to look his way. AS Tom
didn't know anybody in the car, he
couldn't talk to any one, and C0nse-
Quently all he could do to amuse himself
was to eat, and eat he did until he had
nearly emptled the big basket Of lunch
Mrs Dody, a nelghbor's wife, had given
him. When night came he wished he
was home sleeping In his bed, but just
then the porter began TO do such queer
things that Tom sat up and looked.
The negro reached up and unscrewed
knobs in the top of the car and let down
pdl u VI luG WulAb llhN pnOANCpg anu VII
these shelves were blankets which he
took out. Tom watched him with wide
open eyes while he opened the seats and
took out pillows and made the seats into
beds, and beds on the shelves above too,
and hung curtains in front of them.
Then he came to Toms seat and did the
same.
"Do people sleep in them?" asked Tom.
Eyes, sab, an yo' goin' crawl right in
thah an sleep de bes' kind O. Sleep" and
lie showed Tom little hammock hung
up across the windows, in which he told
him to put his clothes.
Tom went to bed, but he could not
sleep. 1t was the first time of his life
that he had been alone, and for boy
TO be alone at night, far away from home,
going to strange people in strange land,
Is enough to make him feel very heavy
hearted. He wondered what his father
was doing, and II he had forgotten to
feed his calf. He wondered II old Shep
missed him and IL his father was think
ing Of him. The train dashed through
towns where lights cleaned, and now
and then it stopped, and Tom would hear
men talking and look out into the dark
ness and see a depot and dim figures
moving UP and down the track with Ian
terms Then the train sped on through
the night and the tall dark forms OF trees
and buildings loomed up and flashed past
like black giants.
"What IL the train should run off the
track!" Toms heart stood still at the
thought. He would be killed and his
father would never know what had be-
come Of him; and while he lay thinking
of all the terrible things that might hap
pen to him, he heard the people in the
car sleeping and they all seemed to be
sleeping out loud. "Well, there surely
isn't any danger If all these grown people
can go to sleep as sound as that" thought
Tom. "If they are not afraid, needn't
be-" and so he turned over and went to
sleep likewise, and didn't wake up till
1t was broad daylight, when he looked
out and saw a very queer country. The
land was very hllly, and such big hills!
Higher than the highest bluff he had
ever seen, and some Of them were SO
blue and stretched so far away so faint
and so blue that the most distant ones
seemed to melt into the sky. "Jiminy!"
said Tom to himself He saw that the
people in the car were getting up and
that the porter was making the beds into
seats again, so he dressed in a hurry and
washed his face and cOmbed his hair In
the little room at the end Of the car where
men were doing the same, and he hurried
back to sit in his seat and look at the
hills; and while he was looking, one Of
the ladies he had watched the day before
came to his seat and began to talk to
him. She told him that the big hills were
the Allegheny mountains. The train was
going around a mountain with trees COW
erlng It's side, which sloped away far be-
low into little valley where the fog
still rested over the brook and meadows
in spots like little white clouds, for the
sun had not vet climbed over the big