Understood Betsy | Page 7

or ands, Elizabeth Ann's satchel was
packed, and Cousin James Lathrop's satchel was packed, and the two
set off together, the big, portly, middle-aged man quite as much afraid
of his mother as Elizabeth Ann was. But he was going to New York,
and it is conceivable that he thought once or twice on the trip that there
were good times in New York as well as business engagements,
whereas poor Elizabeth Ann was being sent straight to the one place in
the world where there were no good times at all. Aunt Harriet had said
so, ever so many times. Poor Elizabeth Ann!

CHAPTER II
BETSY HOLDS THE REINS
You can imagine, perhaps, the dreadful terror of Elizabeth Ann as the
train carried her along toward Vermont and the horrible Putney Farm!
It had happened so quickly--her satchel packed, the telegram sent, the
train caught--that she had not had time to get her wits together, assert
herself, and say that she would NOT go there! Besides, she had a
sinking notion that perhaps they wouldn't pay any attention to her if she
did. The world had come to an end now that Aunt Frances wasn't there
to take care of her! Even in the most familiar air she could only half
breathe without Aunt Frances! And now she was not even being taken
to the Putney Farm! She was being sent!
She shrank together in her seat, more and more frightened as the end of
her journey came nearer, and looked out dismally at the winter
landscape, thinking it hideous with its brown bare fields, its brown bare
trees, and the quick-running little streams hurrying along, swollen with
the January thaw which had taken all the snow from the hills. She had
heard her elders say about her so many times that she could not stand
the cold, that she shivered at the very thought of cold weather, and
certainly nothing could look colder than that bleak country into which
the train was now slowly making its way.
The engine puffed and puffed with great laboring breaths that shook
Elizabeth Ann's diaphragm up and down, but the train moved more and
more slowly. Elizabeth Ann could feel under her feet how the floor of
the car was tipped up as it crept along the steep incline. "Pretty stiff
grade here?" said a passenger to the conductor.
"You bet!" he assented. "But Hillsboro is the next station and that's at
the top of the hill. We go down after that to Rutland." He turned to
Elizabeth Ann--"Say, little girl, didn't your uncle say you were to get
off at Hillsboro? You'd better be getting your things together."
Poor Elizabeth Ann's knees knocked against each other with fear of the
strange faces she was to encounter, and when the conductor came to

help her get off, he had to carry the white, trembling child as well as
her satchel. But there was only one strange face there,--not another soul
in sight at the little wooden station. A grim-faced old man in a fur cap
and heavy coat stood by a lumber wagon.
"This is her, Mr. Putney," said the conductor, touching his cap, and
went back to the train, which went away shrieking for a nearby crossing
and setting the echoes ringing from one mountain to another.
There was Elizabeth Ann alone with her much-feared Great-uncle
Henry. He nodded to her, and drew out from the bottom of the wagon a
warm, large cape, which he slipped over her shoulders. "The women
folks were afraid you'd git cold drivin'," he explained. He then lifted
her high to the seat, tossed her satchel into the wagon, climbed up
himself, and clucked to his horses. Elizabeth Ann had always before
thought it an essential part of railway journeys to be much kissed at the
end and asked a great many times how you had "stood the trip."
She sat very still on the high lumber seat, feeling very forlorn and
neglected. Her feet dangled high above the floor of the wagon. She felt
herself to be in the most dangerous place she had ever dreamed of in
her worst dreams. Oh, why wasn't Aunt Frances there to take care of
her! It was just like one of her bad dreams--yes, it was horrible! She
would fall, she would roll under the wheels and be crushed to ... She
looked up at Uncle Henry with the wild, strained eyes of nervous terror
which always brought Aunt Frances to her in a rush to "hear all about
it," to sympathize, to reassure.
Uncle Henry looked down at her soberly, his hard, weather-beaten old
face quite unmoved. "Here, you drive, will you, for a piece?" he said
briefly, putting the reins into her hands, hooking his spectacles over