Such trifling incidents helped to while away the time, and after the big mill dam was passed, which according to the timetable indicated the state line of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with somehow touching on a corner of Maine, then Nancy knew the journey was almost over.
The afternoon was cool and pleasant, for early June was still behaving beautifully, and Nancy was not sorry that she had taken her mother’s advice and worn her school suit of blue serge.
“I suppose,” she ruminated, “Rosalind’s clothes will be gor-gee-ous.” This visioned her own limited outfit. “But being so fat it must be hard getting clothes. They all have to be made to order, of course.”
It was at this juncture that the little old-fashioned woman, in the seat opposite Nancy, spread her ginghamed self out in the aisle, in order to cope more freely with the over-crowded bag she was struggling to close. Her efforts were so violent, and her groans so audible, that everybody around took frank notice of her. First, she would get between the two seats, backing to that in front, and trudge away at the helpless, hopeless carry-all. Then, she would put the bag on the floor and work from the aisle. Finally, she literally threw up her hands and looked comically at Nancy.
“Ain’t it the mischief, sissy?” she said suddenly. “I got to get off with that bag bulged wide open.”
Nancy laughed outright. “Sissy” was such an old-fashioned name to be called. Then she looked critically at the recalcitrant bag.
“Maybe I could do it,” she suggested, although she instinctively felt like calling the car man to help. Yet the funny little country woman, with her checked gingham dress, her bronzed skin and her perfectly useless hat, that merely rested on the top of her frowsy head, was smiling so friendly, that Nancy felt impelled to offer personal aid.
So she stepped over and tackled the bag. It was too full, much too full, of course, and the articles in it were the non-crushable kind, hard and firm. Surely the biggest opponent to the catch and its clasp meeting was a bottle, for it bulged out in one place as fast as Nancy tried to push it in at another.
“I’m afraid I can’t close it,” Nancy admitted reluctantly. “Couldn’t you take anything out?”