She tried to flirt with
the tall buildings. She was afraid to leave Chicago lest she never
get to New York, or find it inferior. She begged to be left there.
It was plenty good enough for her.
But once aboard the sleeping-car she was blissful again, and
embarrassed her mother and father with her adoration. In all
sincerity, Kedzie mechanically worshiped people who got things
for her, and loathed people who forbade things or took them away.
She horrified the porter by calling him "Mister"--almost as much
as her parents scandalized him the next day by eating their meals
out of a filing-cabinet of shoe-boxes compiled by Mrs. Thropp. But
it was all picnic to Kedzie. Fortunately for her repose, she never
knew that there was a dining-car attached.
The ordeal of a night in a sleeping-car coffin was to Kedzie an
experience of faery. She laughed aloud when she bumped her head,
and getting out of and into her clothes was a fascinating exercise
in contortion. She was entranced by the wash-room with its hot and
cold water and its basin of apparent silver, whose contents did not
have to be lifted and splashed into a slop-jar, but magically
emptied themselves at the raising of a medallion.
She had not worn herself out with enthusiasm by the time the first
night was spent and half the next day. She pressed her nose against
the window and ached with regret at the hurry with which towns and
cities were whipped away from her eyes.
She did not care for grass and trees and cows and dull villages,
but she thrilled at the beauty of big, dark railroad stations
and noble street-cars and avenues paved with exquisite asphalt.
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