Serena was gazing at everything with wide-open eyes. I don't think she understood things any better than I did, but she was too proud to ask questions. Before we went to sleep that night I would probably have to explain everything to her.
I lay down and got up again, and closed my eyes for hours, and then opened them. It seemed to me that our journey would never end.
“Are we going round the great, big world, Mona?” I asked wearily.
“No, no, Pussy,” she replied gently, “only over a little bit of it.”
I gazed out the large door in the side of the car, for it was a lovely day, and the baggage-master left it open a little bit. If he had closed it I should not have seen a thing, for the windows were high up in the sides of the car.
We were passing through another big city. Then came fewer houses, then green grass and trees like the Common.
“No, not yet. I will let you know when we reach Maine.”
It was beautiful if it was not Maine, and the scenery kept changing. Not steady rows of trees like the Common, nor one little pond, but many trees set different ways and large ponds—“lakes,” Mona called them, and rivers.
Just when we were getting weariest, we had a very pleasant diversion. Anthony picked up a basket from the floor, and gave us all something to eat. How good those sandwiches tasted! Then he gave us some milk which he poured from bottles into a pan. I considered it was very thoughtful in him to have provided this lunch and said so.
“It was Mrs. Denville,” said Mona. “It would not have occurred to Anthony to do it.”
In the bottom of the basket were some nicer sandwiches for Anthony. He gave some to the baggage-master, and they seemed to calm him still more.
I went to sleep after our lunch. I actually had a real nap, till I was awakened by some one saying in my ear, “This is Maine, your lovely Maine.”
My eyes just flew open—lovely Maine; why it was the dirty part of a city that we were passing through.
“No,” replied Mona, “but we shall soon come to the country parts. Maine has some towns and villages, you know. It is not all fields and woods.”
“I did not know,” I said confusedly, then I began to watch—to watch just as an ordinary cat looks after a mouse. Our family was not much good at catching mice. My father is a little bit disinclined to exert himself, and Serena thinks mouse-catching vulgar.