This unexpected
incident of the freight train was the reason why everybody about the
South Byfleet station insisted that no such person had taken passage
by the regular train that same morning, and why there were those who
persuaded themselves that Miss Betsey Lane was probably lying at the
bottom of the poor-farm pond.
VII.
"Land sakes!" said Miss Betsey Lane, as she watched a Turkish person
parading by in his red fez, "I call the Centennial somethin' like the
day o' judgment! I wish I was goin' to stop a month, but I dare say
'twould be the death o' my poor old bones."
She was leaning against the barrier of a patent pop-corn
establishment, which had given her a sudden reminder of home, and of
the winter nights when the sharp-kerneled little red and yellow ears
were brought out, and Old Uncle Eph Flanders sat by the kitchen stove,
and solemnly filled a great wooden chopping-tray for the refreshment
of the company. She had wandered and loitered and looked until her
eyes and head had grown numb and unreceptive; but it is only
unimaginative persons who can be really astonished. The imagination
can always outrun the possible and actual sights and sounds of the
world; and this plain old body from Byfleet rarely found anything rich
and splendid enough to surprise her. She saw the wonders of the West
and the splendors of the East with equal calmness and satisfaction;
she had always known that there was an amazing world outside the
boundaries of Byfleet.
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