Sally had been a little Fresh Air child one year; and so, being very bright and sharp with her eyes, and quite capable of putting two and two together, she was not unfamiliar with the ways of getting about.
She soon found her way to the station, people gazing after her with her baby on her shoulder. She felt so much more respectable than before the cook of the steamer took out his big needle and thread in her behalf that she did not mind the curious eyes as she skimmed along.
At the station she got some crackers, and some fresh milk for the baby, in a dreadful hurry, lest this time it should be the sailors who would be after her.
At the ticket-office, after answering many inquisitive questions, she bought with her silver dollars a ticket that would take her a long way on the train that was going farthest from the city she had left in the first place.
But she was not without alarm, when, as she sat munching her crackers, the train began to back and fill, ran a mile or so, and then stood still a long while. She walked up and down in the aisle, looking out of windows anxiously at every turn, over the broad water where boats rocked pleasantly, and singing in a low voice to the restless baby on her shoulder:
“Buy my pipers, pritty loidy,
I don’t darst go home, that’s true;
I won’t git no supper, loidy,
If ye don’t, and if I do.”
At last another train came along, some people hurried in, and then Sally’s train went puffing and blowing on its way; and the joggle jolted the baby to sleep, and by and by Sally too. She roused herself to give the conductor her ticket—the man looking at her searchingly; but when he came back to question her he found her asleep again.
It was a long, refreshing slumber that Sally had; and when at last the little old conductor told her this was the place to which her ticket took her, she skipped off the car, happy-hearted to think of all the long distance that lay between her and the city and the ship. She edged through the little throng always waiting at a station, who if they thought at all about her thought she belonged to some poor French Canadians, and hurried down the first road she saw. Then spying a foot-path leading up a hill, among low bushes, to a wood, she was over the fence in no time, and following it up and out of sight.
Then at last Sally breathed freely. She never thought of being afraid in the green afternoon wood. She kept the half-visible path by a kind of instinct.
On and on, and up and up, Sally went. Then down and down on the other side, she made her way, sometimes in deep green gloom, and creeping under heavy branches; sometimes where a shimmer of leaves let her see a pale blue sky overhead. Once a young fawn looked at her through the boughs and fled away in a fright that made her laugh—as if anything need be afraid of her! Once a brood of little brown partridges scurried away under foot like a parcel of dead leaves. Once she stooped to smooth two little hairy things cuddled in a grassy hollow in the lee of a big, warm rock, who evidently did not like it; and it was well for Sally that their mother, who would not have liked it either, was off foraging and rolling in a berry-patch—for they were bear’s cubs.
All the way along Sally was conscious of a delicious sort of air, a scent of earth and flowers and spicy leaves that comforted her soul, although burrs and boughs and twigs and pebbles discomfited her feet, tough little feet though they were.
By and by the trees grew thin. She came out on a bright and open spot where a spring bubbled up and ran away in a tiny brook. A wooden trough, hollowed out of an old tree, stood beside the spring, half full of water in which the sun had lain all day.
As she sat down, Sally dabbled her fingers in the trough. The water was warm. In a moment she had off the baby’s poor little slip, and then gave him the most refreshing bath the little creature had ever had in his life. After it, she laid him down to kick and sprawl and crow and gurgle on a bed of soft warm moss, while she washed her own face and hands, and dipped her head in the spring, where the water made a glossy curl of every lock of her hair.
This done, Sally took the bottle of milk out of the big silk handkerchief, tasted it to find if it were still sweet, and proceeded to give the baby his supper. She put the bottle afterwards in the edge of the running water to keep cool, and then wrapped him over and over in the soft handkerchief, having spread his little gown on a bush to dry, and laid him down on the grass. She rambled about a little while, picking and eating berries. Afterward she lay down beside him, putting her arm over him. Tired out with her long tramp and all her cares and fears, Sally slept till the baby woke her in the broad sunlight of the next morning. She ran for the bottle in the brook; but alas the little drop of milk was sour. She stayed long enough to wash the bottle; and then, without stopping for any of the tempting berries, she took up her march again.
The baby was crying lustily for his breakfast, when Sally saw the smoke of a farmhouse and with some hesitation drew near it. A man, coming from the barn, was just carrying in a foaming pail of milk.
“Oh, if youse’d gimme de full of de bottle!” cried Sally.
“What for?” said the man gruffly.
“For de byby,” answered Sally.
“Why don’t you have your own milk?” said the man. “There, hold your dipper.”
But Sally hadn’t any dipper; and at that moment a thin, colorless woman appeared at the door, a look of wonder and then another of pity and sweetness sweeping over her face; and Sally and the baby were in the kitchen directly afterward.
“Where’d you come f’m?” the woman asked Sally.
“Down below,” said Sally, who had no notion of telling.
“Whar’ you goin’?”
“Goin’ on.”
“Got any mother?” twisting one of Sally’s curls.
“Naw.”
“Nor father, either, I s’pose?”
“Naw.”
“My land! Wal, you hev somethin’ ter eat, an’ then I’ll see.” And Sally had a breakfast that made her think of these people as one thinks of those in kings’ palaces—only Sally had never heard of kings’ palaces.
While she was “topping off,” as the good woman called it, with pancakes and maple-syrup, her new friend fed the baby, and then brought a basin of warm water and soap with soft towels, and washed him carefully and rubbed his back, while he stretched and kicked and laughed. She got a little cotton nightgown that she had laid away in camphor, and put it on him. “Oh!” she said, “he’s good enough to eat!” She took him out to show him to her husband. “Father!” she said. “He’s jest the image of our little John!”
“Can’t help it ef he is,” said the man, who evidently knew what she wished. “We can’t afford ter be a-keepin’ of tramps. She said she was goin’ on. You jes’ let her go on!”
The woman knew it was no use to say more. She came in with tears on her face. But she had Sally make herself decent, and she gave her a cotton gown that had once been pink and was now a rosy white. In it, though it was a little too long, Sally looked quite quaint. It had been the gown of the poor woman’s dear and only daughter, who had died before the little John had died. And then this good, kind soul did up Sally’s scratched and blistered feet in some ointment, with bandages, and dressed them up in a pair of little old shoes she had always kept. After that she put up a luncheon of fried bread and a piece of pie for Sally, and filled the milk-bottle, and Sally shouldered the baby and made off.
But turning for a look at the place where she had met so much kindness, Sally saw the woman crying, and she went back.
“Youse ain’t no need ter feel bad,” she said, as she put her arms round the kind friend’s neck. And then suddenly, in a great fear of she knew not what, she scampered off as fast as her feet would let her. They were very tired and lame little feet now.