After a fit of choking that could be heard all over the train the left lung of the locomotive gave out. I had heard her coughing up the long grade and had begun to wonder whether she would pull through, when she gave a wheeze and then a jerk, and out went her cylinder head.

Boston was four hours away and time of value to me. So it was to all the other passengers, judging from the variety and pungency of their remarks—all except one, an old lady who had boarded the train at a station near the foot of the long grade and who occupied a seat immediately in front of mine.

Such a dear old lady! plump and restful, a gray worsted shawl about her shoulders and a reticule on her arm. An old lady with a round rosy face framed in a hood-of-a-bonnet edged with ruffles, the strings tied under her chin, her two soft, human, kindly eyes peering at you over her gold-rimmed spectacles resting on the end of her nose. The sort of an old lady that you would like to have had for a mother provided you never had one of your own that you could remember—so comforting would have been her touch.

As the delay continued, the passengers made remarks. Some I cannot remember; others I cannot print.

One man in unblacked boots, with a full set of dusting-brush whiskers sticking up above his collarless shirt, smooth-shaven chin, red face, and a shock of iron-gray hair held in place by a slouch hat, said he'd "be doggoned if he ever knowed where he was at when he travelled on this road."

Another—a man with a leather case filled with samples on the seat beside him—a restless, loud-talking man, remarked that "they ought to build a cemetery at both ends of the road, and then the mourners could go in a walk and everybody would be satisfied, instead of trying to haul trains loaded with live people that wanted to get somewheres."

Another—a woman this time, in a flower-covered hat and shiny brown silk dress, new, and evidently the pride of her heart from the care she took of it—one of those crisp, breezy, outspoken women of forty-five or fifty—slim, narrow-faced, keen-eyed, with a red—quite red—nose that would one day meet an ambitious upturned chin, and straight, firm mouth, the under lip pressed tight against the upper one when her mind was made up—remarked in a voice that sounded like a buzz-saw striking a knot:

"You ain't tellin' me that we're goin' to miss the train at Springfield, be ye?"

This remark being addressed to the car as a whole—no single passenger having vouchsafed any such information—was received in dead silence.

The arrival of the conductor, wiping the grease and grime from his hands with a wad of cotton-waste, revived hope for a moment and encouraged an air of gayety.

He was a gentlemanly conductor, patient, accustomed to be abused and brief in his replies.

"Maybe one hour; maybe six."

The gayety ceased.

The bewhiskered man said, "Well, I'll be gosh-durned!"

The sample-case man said, "—— —— —— —— ——" (You can fill that up at your leisure.)

The woman in the brown silk rose to her feet, gathered her skirts carefully in her hand, skewered the conductor with her eye, and said: "You've gone and sp'ilt my day, that's what you've gone and done;" and, receiving no reply, crossed the aisle and plumped herself down in the overturned seat opposite the dear old lady, adding, as she shook out her skirt:

"Dirt mean, ain't it?"

The Dear Old Lady looked at the Woman in Brown, nodded in kindly assent, gazed at the conductor over her spectacles until he had closed the door, and said in a low, sweet voice that was addressed to nobody in particular, and yet which permeated the car like a strain of music:

"Well, if we're going to be here for six hours I guess I'll knit."

Just here I began to be interested. The philosophy of the dear woman's life had evidently made her proof against such trivialities. Six hours! What difference did it make? There was a flavor of the MaÑana por la maÑana of the Spaniard and the Dolce far niente of the Italian in her acceptance of the situation that appealed to me. Another sun would rise on the morrow as beautiful as the one we had to-day; why worry over its setting? Let us eat, drink, and be merry—or knit. It was all the same to her.

I immediately wanted to know more of this passenger—a desire that did not in the slightest degree extend to any other inmate of the car. And yet there were restrictions and barriers which I could not pass. Not occupying the seat beside her or opposite her, but the one behind her, I, of course, was not on terms of such intimacy as would make it possible for me to presume upon her privacy. She was occupying her own house, as it were, framed in between two seat-backs turned to face each other, giving her the use of four seats—one of which had been usurped by the Woman in Brown. I had my one seat with my bag beside me, giving me the privileges of two sittings. Between us, of course, was the back of her own seat, over which I looked and studied her back hair and bonnet and shawl and—knitting.

Under the circumstances I could no more intrude upon the Dear Old Lady's privacy than upon a neighbor's who lived next door to me but whom I did not know and was separated from me only by an eight-inch brick wall. The conventionalities of life enforce these conditions. When, therefore, the Dear Old Lady informed me and the car that she would "knit," I got myself into position to watch the operation; not obtrusively, not with any intention of prying into her private life, but just because—well, just because I couldn't help it.

There was something about her, somehow, that I could not resist. I knew a Dear Old Lady once. She wasn't so stout as this old lady and her eyes were not brown, but blue, and her hair smooth as gray satin and of the same color. I can see her now as I write, the lamplight falling on her ivory needles and tangle of white yarn—and sometimes, even now, I think I hear her voice.

The Dear Old Lady before me felt in her pocket, pulling up her overskirt and fumbling about for a mysterious pouch that was tied around her waist, perhaps, and in which she carried her purse, and then she pinched her reticle and said to herself—I was so near I could hear every word: "Oh, I guess I put it in the bag"—and she leaned over and began unfastening the clasps of an old-fashioned carpet-bag, encased in a pocket-edition of a linen duster, which rested on the seat in front of her and beside the Woman in Brown, who drew her immaculate, never-to-be-spotted silk skirt out of the way of any possible polluting touch.

I craned my head. Somehow I could hardly wait to see what kind of knitting she would take out—whether it was a man's stocking or a baby's mitten or a pair of wee socks, or a stripe to sew in an afghan to put over somebody's bed. What stories could be written about the things dear old ladies knit—what stories they are, really! In every ball of yarn there is a thread that leads from one heart to another: to some big son or fragile daughter, or to the owner of a pair of pink toes that won't stay covered no matter how close the crib—or to a chubby-faced boy with frost-tipped ears or cheeks.

First came the ball of yarn—just plain gray yarn—and then two steel needles, and then——

Then the Dear Old Lady stopped, and an expression of blank amazement overspread her sweet face as her fingers searched the interior of the bag.

"Why," she said to herself, "why! Well! You don't tell me that—well! I never knew that to happen before. Oh, isn't that dreadful! Well, I never!" Here she drew out an unfinished gray yarn stocking. "Just look at it! Isn't it awful!"

The Woman in Brown sprang to her feet and switched her dress close to her knees.

"What is it?" she cried.

"Jam!" answered the old lady.

"Jam! You don't mean to say——"

"That's just what it is. Blackberry jam, that my Lizzie put up for John just before I left home and—oh, isn't it too bad! It's streaming all over the seat and running down on the floor! Oh my! my!"

The Woman in Brown gave a bound and was out in the aisle. "Well, I should think," she cried indignantly, "that you'd had sense enough to know better than to carry jam in a thing like that. I ain't got none on me, hev I?"

The Dear Old Lady didn't reply. She was too much absorbed in her own misfortunes to notice her companions.

"I told Lizzie," she continued, "just 'fore I left, that she oughter put it in a basket, but she 'lowed that it had a tin cap and was screwed tight, and that she'd stuff it down in my clothes and it would carry all right. I ain't never left it out of my hand but once, and then I give it to the man who helped me up the steps. He must have set it down sudden like."

As she spoke she drew out from the inside of the bag certain articles of apparel which she laid on the seat. One—evidently a neck handkerchief—looked like a towel that had just wiped off the face of a boy who had swallowed the contents of the jar.

The Woman in Brown was in the aisle now examining her skirts, twisting them round and round in search of stray bits of jam. The Dear Old Lady was still at work in her bag, her back shielding its smeared contents. Trickling down upon the floor and puddling in the aisle and under the seats on the opposite side of the car ran a sticky fluid that the woman avoided stepping upon with as much care as if it had been a snake.

I started forward to help, and then I suddenly checked myself. What could I do? The blackberry jam had not only soaked John's stockings, but it had also permeated. Well, the Dear Old Lady was travelling and evidently on the way to see John—her son, no doubt—and to stay all night. No, it was beyond question; I could not be of the slightest use. Then again, there was a woman present. Whatever help the Dear Old Lady needed should come from her.

"You ain't got no knife, I suppose?" I heard the Woman in Brown say. "If you had you could scrape most of it off."

"No," answered the Dear Old Lady. "Have you?"

"Well, I did hev, but I don't just know where it is. It would gorm that up, too, maybe, if I did find it."

"No, I guess the best way is to try and wash it off. I'll get rid of this anyway," the Dear Old Lady answered; and out came the treacherous jar with the crack extending down its side, its metal top loose, the whole wrapped in yellow paper—all of which she dropped out of the open window.

During this last examination the Woman in Brown stood in the aisle, her skirts above her ankles. It wasn't her bag, or her stockings, or her jam. She had paid her fare and was entitled to her seat and its surrounding comforts: I had a good view of her face as she stood in front of me, and I saw what was passing in her mind. To this air of being imposed upon, first by the railroad and now by this fellow-passenger, was added a certain air of disgust—a contempt for any one, however old, who could be so stupid and careless. The little wrinkles that kept puckering at the base of her red lobster-claw of a nose—it really looked like one—helped me in this diagnosis. Its shape prevented her from turning it up at anybody, and wrinkling was all that was left. Having read her thoughts as reflected in her face, I was no longer surprised that she continued standing without offering in any way to help her companion out of her dilemma.

The Dear Old Lady's examination over, and the intricacies of her bag explored and the corners of certain articles of apparel lifted and immediately replaced again, she said to herself, with a sigh of relief:

"Ain't but one stocking tetched, anyhow. Most of it's gone into my shoes—yes, that's better. Oh, I was so scared!"

"Everything stuck up, ain't it?" rasped the Woman. She hadn't taken her seat yet. It seemed to me she could get more comfort out of the Old Lady's misery standing up.

"Well, it might ha' been worse, but I ain't goin' to worry a mite over it. I'll go to the cooler and wash up what I can, and the rest's got to wait till I get to John's," she said in her sweet, patient way, as she gathered up the bag and its contents and made her way to the wash-basin.

The car relapsed into its former dull condition. Those of the passengers who were not experts and whose advice, if taken, would have immediately replaced the cylinder-head and sent the train in on time, were picking flowers outside the track, but close enough to the train to spring aboard at the first sign of life in the motive-power. Every now and then there would come a back-thrust of the car and a bumping into the one behind us. Some scientist who had spent his life in a country store hereupon explained to a mechanical engineer who had a market garden out of Springfield (I learned this from their conversation) that "it was the b'iler that acted that way; the engineer was lettin' off steam and the jerk come when he raised the safety-valve."

A brakeman now opened the door nearest the water-cooler, passed the old lady washing up, ran amuck through a volley of questions fired at him in rapid succession, and slammed the other door behind him without replying to one of them. In this fusillade the Woman in Brown, who had now turned over a flower-picking passenger's seat in addition to her own, had managed her tongue with the rapidity and precision of a Gatling gun.

One of those mysterious rumors, picked up from some scrap of conversation heard outside, now drifted through the car. It conveyed the information that another engine had been telegraphed for and would be along soon. This possibility the Sample-Case Man demolished by remarking in his peculiar vernacular—unprintable, all of it—that it was ten miles to the nearest telegraph station and it would take two hours to walk it.

The bottom having dropped out of this slight hope, the car relapsed into its dull monotony. No statement now of any kind would be believed by anybody.

During this depression I espied the Dear Old Lady making her way down the aisle. No trace of anxiety was on her face. The bag had resumed its former appearance, its linen duster buttoned tight over its ample chest.

The Woman in Brown was waiting for her, her feet up on the flower-picking passenger's seat, her precious brown silk tucked in above her shoes.

"Quite a muss, warn't it?" she said with rather a gleeful tone, as if she rejoiced in the Old Lady's punishment for her stupidity.

"Yes, but it's all right now. It soaked through my shoes and went all over my cap, and——" Here she bent her head and whispered into the Woman's ear. I realized then how impossible it would have been for me to have rendered the slightest assistance.

She had taken her seat now and had laid the bag in its original position on the cushion in front of her. My heart had gone out to her, but I was powerless to help. Once or twice I conned over in my mind an expression of sympathy, but I could not decide on just what I ought to say and when I ought to say it, and so I kept silent. I should not have felt that way about the Woman in Brown, who sat across from me, her two feet patting away on the seat cushion as if to express her delight that she had escaped the catastrophe (toes express joy oftener than fingers, if we did but know it). It would not have taken me five seconds to express my opinion of her—with my toes had she been a man.

The Dear Old Lady began now to rearrange her toilet, drawing up her shawl, tightening the strings of her comfortable bonnet, wiping the big gold spectacles on a bit of chamois from her reticule. I watched every movement. Somehow I could not keep my eyes from her. Then I heard her say in a low voice to herself:

"Well, the toe warn't stained—I guess I can work on that."

Out came the needles and yarn again, and the wrinkled fingers settled down to their work. No more charming picture in the world than the one now before me!

The Woman in Brown held a different opinion. Craning her head and getting a full view of the Dear Old Lady peacefully and comfortably at work, all her sorrows ended, she snapped out:

"I s'pose ye don't know I can't put my feet down nowheres. It's all a muck round here; you seed it when the jar fust busted, 'cause I heard ye say so. I been 'spectin' ye'd clean it up somehow."

Down went the knitting and up she got.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll get a newspaper and wipe it up. I hope you didn't get none on your clothes."

"Oh, I took care o' that! This is a brand-new dress and I ain't wore it afore. I don't get nothin' on my clothes—I ain't that kind." This last came with a note of triumph in her voice.

I watched the Dear Old Lady lean over the thin axe-handle ankles of the Woman in Brown, mop up a little pool of jam-juice, tuck the stained paper under the crossbar, and regain her seat. I started up to help, but it was all over before I could interfere.

The Dear Old Lady resumed her knitting. The Woman in Brown put down her feet; her rights had been recognized and she was satisfied. I kept up my vigil.

Soon a movement opposite attracted me. I raised my eyes. The Woman in Brown, with her eye on the Dear Old Lady, was stealthily opening a small paper bundle. She had the air of a boy watching a policeman. The paper parcel contained a red napkin, a dinner knife, and two fat sandwiches streaming with butter.

"Oh, you brought your lunch with you, did ye?" remarked the Dear Old Lady, who had unexpectedly raised her eyes from her knitting and at the wrong moment.

"Well, jes' a bite. I'd offer ye some, but I heard ye say that you were goin' to eat dinner with your son. That's so, ain't it?"

"Yes, that's so."

The needles kept on their course, the Dear Old Lady's thoughts worked in with every stitch. It was now twelve o'clock, and Boston hours away. John would dine late if he waited for his old mother.

The red napkin had now been laid on the seat cushion and the sandwiches placed side by side in full sight of the car. Concealment was no longer necessary.

"I don't s'pose ye left any water in the cooler, did ye?"

"Oh, plenty," came the reply, the needles still plying, the dear face fixed on their movement.

"Well, then, I guess before I eat I'll get a cup," and she covered the luncheon with the brown paper and passed down the aisle.

During her brief absence several important incidents took place. First there came a jerk that felt for a moment like a head-on collision. This was a new locomotive, which had been sent to our relief, butting into the rear car. Then followed a rush of passengers, flower-pickers, mechanical engineers, scientists, sample-case man, and, last, the man with the dusting-brush whiskers. He paused for a moment, located his seat by his umbrella in the rack overhead, picked up the paper parcel, transferred it to the other seat, the one the woman in Brown had just left, tilted forward the back, and sat down.

When he had settled himself and raised his head, the Woman in Brown stood over him looking into his eyes, an angry expression on her face. She held a cup of water in her hand.

"My seat, ain't it?" he blurted out.

"Yes, 'spec' it is," she snarled back, "long as you want it." And she gathered her skirts carefully, edged into the reduced space of her former seat, laid the cup of water on the sill of the window, and sat down as carefully as a hen adjusting herself to a nest, and, I thought, with precisely the same movement.

A moment more and she leaned over the seat-back and said to the bewhiskered man:

"Hand me that napkin and stuff, will ye?"

The man moved his arm, picked up his newspaper, looked under it, and said:

"It ain't here."

"Well, I guess it is. I sot it there not more'n two minutes ago!"

The man settled himself in his seat and began to read.

"Look 'round there, will ye? Maybe it dropped on the floor."

"It ain't on the floor. Guess I know a napkin when I see it." This came with some degree of positiveness.

"Well, it ain't here. I left it right where you're a-sittin' when I went and got this water. You ain't eat it, hev ye?" She was still in her seat, her head twisted about, her face expressing every thought that crossed her mind.

"No, I ain't eat it. I ain't no goat!" and the man buried his face in his paper. For him the incident was closed.

Here there came a still small voice floating out from the lips of the Dear Old Lady, slowly, one word at a time:

"Ain't you set on it?"

"Set on it! What!"

She was on her feet now, pulling her skirt around, craning her neck, her face getting whiter and whiter as the truth dawned upon her.

"Oh, Lordy! Jes' look at it! However did I come to! Oh!"

"Here, take my handkerchief," murmured the Dear Old Lady. "Let me help wipe it off." And she laid down her knitting.

Oh, but it was a beautiful stain! A large, irregular, map-like stain, with the counties plotted in bits of ham and the townships in smears of bread, with little rivers of butter running everywhere. One dear, beloved rill in an ecstasy of delight had skipped a fold and was pushing a heap of butter ahead of it down a side plait.

I hugged myself with the joy of it all. If it had only been a crock she had sat in, with sandwiches enough to supply a picnic!

And the stain!

That should have been as large as the State of Rhode Island!