She was an alert, quickly interested
old soul, and this was a bit of neutral ground between the farm and
Shrewsbury, where she was unattached and irresponsible. She had lived
through the last tragic moments of her old life, and felt a certain
relief, and Shrewsbury might be as far away as the other side of the
Rocky Mountains for all the consciousness she had of its real
existence. She was simply a traveler for the time being, and began to
comment, with delicious phrases and shrewd understanding of human
nature, on two or three persons near us who attracted her attention.
"Where do you s'pose they be all goin'?" she asked contemptuously.
"There ain't none on 'em but what looks kind o' respectable. I'll
warrant they've left work to home they'd ought to be doin'. I knowed,
if ever I stopped to think, that cars was hived full o' folks, an'
wa'n't run to an' fro for nothin'; but these can't be quite up to the
average, be they? Some on 'em's real thrif'less; guess they've be'n
shoved out o' the last place, an' goin' to try the next one,--like me,
I suppose you'll want to say! Jest see that flauntin' old creatur'
that looks like a stopped clock. There! everybody can't be o' one
goodness, even preachers."
I was glad to have Mrs. Peet amused, and we were as cheerful as we
could be for a few minutes. She said earnestly that she hoped to be
forgiven for such talk, but there were some kinds of folks in the cars
that she never had seen before. But when the conductor came to take
her ticket she relapsed into her first state of mind, and was at a
loss.
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