She moved uneasily on
the seat, looking around on all sides a trifle nervously, and then
in an awed whisper said to me, "Don't the cars go all to smash
sometimes?"
"Not many times," I tried to say reassuringly.
"I wan't never in 'em afore, and wouldn't be now, only my son Dan'el's
wife's took oncommon bad, and he thinks I can cure her."
She remained quiet a while, and then somewhat reassured began to grow
curious about her traveling companions.
"Have you cum fur?" she asked.
I explained that I had come a good many miles.
"All alone?"
"Only from New York."
"Going fur?"
"To Cavendish."
"Did you say Cavendish?"
"Yes."
"Be you a furriner?"
"No, I am English;" I felt my color rising as I answered.
"Well, you speak sort o' queer, but my old man was English, too, a
Norfolk man, and blest if I could understand quarter he said for ever so
long after we got keeping company. I used to say yes to everything I
didn't understand when we was alone, for fear he might be popping the
question; but laws, I knew well enough when he did ask."
She fell into an apparently pleasant reverie, but soon returned to the
actualities of life.
"You're not married, surely."
I answered in the negative with fewest possible words.
"Got a young man, though, I'll warrant; such a likely girl."
"I do not understand what you mean," I answered with considerable
dignity, glad to let her know that her own English was not perfect.
"You must have been riz in a queer place not to know what likely is.
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