“I should like it very much,” Walton said, “if you really want me to go.”
“Well, pack your grip, and we'll be off day after tomorrow. We'll tell the boys that we have to see our New York importers and our sugar men in New Orleans, and they can guess the rest. Now, I'm going up to tell the old lady that it is settled, and she can sleep or do any other old thing she likes till, we come back. We'll have a rip-roaring time, Fred. We'll go all the gaits, even if we get put in the lock-up.”
|FRED and his jovial employer spent a ===day and night at New Orleans, and early the following morning took a fast train for New York. Ensconced in the luxurious Pullman, which contained few other passengers, Fred felt that by remaining close in the car as it passed through Georgia he would run little risk of being recognized by any acquaintance or friend of the past. Nevertheless, as the train was leaving Atlanta and speeding toward Stafford, he was literally besieged with gloomy memories. Every station or familiar landmark along the way brought back with crushing force occurrences he had completely forgotten. Once or twice he fancied that Whipple was watching him with an unusually sympathetic eye, but he put the thought from him. Never having been told of the fact, how could the old man even suspect that he was nearing the home of his childhood--the spot of his dreams? He had a yearning to confide more fully to his kindly companion, but the thought came to him that such a disclosure just now might throw a damper upon a journey which he had determined should contain nothing but joy to his benefactor.
It was six o'clock when Cherry Hill was reached. Only seven rapidly shortening miles lay between him and his old home. Fred sat at a window, pretending to read a newspaper. It struck him as highly incongruous that Whipple should think no more of that particular town than of any of the others through which they had passed when it means so much--so very much--to him. The time-table told him that the train stopped only a few minutes at Stafford, and he was both glad and disappointed--glad that the short stop would render his detection the more remote, and sad that he was not to see with his actual eyes the spot dearer to him than any other. There was a prolonged scream from the locomotive's whistle at the extreme end of the train. Could it be that the station was reached? No, for through the gathering dusk Fred could see that the suburbs of the town, as indicated by the electric lights in the distance, were still half a mile away. Perhaps it was to take on water, he thought; but that couldn't be the explanation, for the porter of the car had thrown up a window and was looking out inquiringly.