"Rob!" said his father, sternly, "you know something about those onions: tell me this moment."
Nelly clasped her hands tight, and gave a little cry, "Oh, Rob!"
Now that the final moment had come, Rob spoke up like a man.
"Papa, I threw them out of the car door,--they made such a smell. I found them close to our berth when I first got up, and they smelled so horrid I threw them away. Perhaps they weren"t this man"s onions," said poor Rob, clutching at a last hope.
Mr. March could hardly believe his ears.
"You! You took what did not belong to you, and then threw it away!
Why, Rob! I am ashamed of you! Why, Rob, I wouldn"t have believed it!" exclaimed Mr. March. "You will pay for those onions out of your allowance." And he looked at Rob more sternly than he had ever done in his life.
"Come, now, immediately," he continued, "and apologize to the man."
And he took Rob by the hand and led him to the next seat.
"I am very sorry to tell you, sir," he said, "that my little boy here took your onions and threw them away. He shall buy some for you at the very first station where we can."
"What"d yer throw "em away for?" said the man, looking curiously and not unkindly at Rob, whose face was enough to make anybody sorry for him.
"Because I hate the smell of them so," said Rob, st.u.r.dily; "and my mamma hates them too; and I found them rolling round on the floor, by our berth; and I just picked them up and threw them away. I didn"t think about their being anybody"s,--not until afterwards," he added; "and I"m very sorry, sir. I"ll buy you some more out of my own money."
Mr. March smiled at this little explanation: he saw that Rob had not really intended to do wrong.
"No, no, my boy, you needn"t do that," said the man; "we"re going to get off before dinner time; an" we"ve got a bin full o" onions at home. I expect they do smell kind o" strong to folks that ain"t used to "em, but they"re mighty healthy."
Rob walked back to his seat somewhat relieved, but still very much ashamed. He glanced up in his mother"s face. She looked mortified; still there was a twinkle in her eyes: in the bottom of her heart, she sympathized with Rob"s impulse to be rid of the onions at any cost.
"Oh, Rob!" she said, "how could you do such a thing? You knew they must belong to somebody."
"Well, I did afterwards,--after I told Nell; but, when I picked them up, I didn"t think any thing except how they smelt. It was a good riddance anyhow."
The sick lady, who had to lie down all the way, was in the section next but one to Mr. March"s. She had looked much amused during all this conversation, which she could not help hearing. Mrs. March noticed her pleasant smile, and thought she would like to do something for her. So she gave Nelly a nice cup of hot tea to take over to her. The lady was very grateful.
"Oh!" she said, "this is the first good tea I have tasted since I left home."
Then she made Nelly sit down on the bed beside her, and talked to her so sweetly that Nelly felt as if she had known her all her life; and pretty soon she told her all about Mrs. Napoleon.
"Bring her here. Let me see her," said the lady.
"Oh, I can"t bear to have anybody see her!" said Nelly: "she looks awful."
"Never mind: we"ll draw the curtains, and n.o.body else shall see."
So she called her nurse, who was sitting near; and, as soon as Nelly had climbed up into the berth, the nurse drew the curtains tight and shut them together. It seemed to Mrs. March a long time before Nelly came out. When she came she had two small parcels in her hands. They were both in nice white tissue paper, tied up with pink ribbon.
Nelly looked as if she had been crying, but yet she looked happy; and the sick lady had a most beautiful smile on her face. Nelly gave one of the parcels to her mother, and said:--
"Mamma, will you please pack this in the bag? It is the Empress"s clothes. Perhaps I may have another doll some day that they will fit."
Then she handed the other parcel to her father, and said:--
"Please throw this out of the window, papa?"
"What is it, Nell?" he said, surprised.
Nelly"s voice trembled a little; but she answered bravely.
"Mrs. Napoleon, papa. That nice lady looked at her, and said she never could be mended; and if she were me, she"d throw her right away. She says I"ll feel better as soon as she is out of my sight."
Mr. March looked over at the sick lady and bowed and smiled.
"She is quite right, Nell. You"ll forget all about it much quicker.
Good-by, Mrs. Napoleon," he said, and threw the white parcel with its pink ribbons as far as he could throw it.
"I don"t want to forget about it, papa," replied Nelly, and pressed her face close against the window-pane, so as not to lose that last glimpse of the package.
Never were people gladder to reach any place than Mr. and Mrs. March and Nelly and Rob were to reach Denver. They were so tired that they went right to bed as soon as they entered the hotel. They did not want any supper. The next morning, however, they were up early, all rested and ready to look at every thing. The first thing they saw as they walked out of the hotel door, was a long range of high mountains to the south. They looked down the street on which the hotel stood, and saw these mountains rising up like a great wall across the end of the street. They were covered with snow two-thirds of the way down. The lower part which was not covered with snow was of a very dark blue color; and the upper part, where the snow lay, shone in the sun so dazzling bright that it made their eyes ache to look at it. The sky was as blue as blue could be, and had not a cloud in it; and some of the sharp peaks of the mountains looked as if they were really cutting through the sky. Mr. and Mrs.
March and Nelly and Rob all stood still in the middle of the street looking at the beautiful sight. Several carriages and wagons came very near running over them, but they hardly observed it. No one of them spoke for some minutes: even Rob was overawed by the grandeur of the mountains. But his overawed silence did not last long. In a few minutes, he broke out with:--
"Bully mountains! ain"t they? Come on!" Mr. and Mrs. March laughed.
"Well, Rob," said his father, "you"ve brought us to our senses: haven"t you? But I do wish you wouldn"t talk slang."
"No, Rob," said his mother. "How many times have I asked you not to say "bully"?"
"I know it, mother," replied Rob; "but you don"t tell me any other word to say instead of it. A fellow must say something; and "bully"
"s such a bully word. I don"t believe there"s any other word that"s good for any thing when things are "bully.""
"Oh, dear Rob! dear Rob! Three times in one sentence! What shall we do to you? We will really have to hire you to leave off that word, as grandpa hired you to drink cold water, at so much a week."
"Mamma," said Rob, solemnly, "you couldn"t hire me to leave off saying "bully." Money wouldn"t pay me: I try not to say it often, because you hate it so; but I don"t expect to leave it off till I"m a man. I just have to say it sometimes."
"Oh, Rob, you don"t "have" to say it!" exclaimed Nell. "n.o.body "has to say" any thing."
"Girls don"t," said Rob, patronizingly: "but girls are different; I"m always telling you that girls don"t need words like boys. It"s just like whistling: girls needn"t whistle; but a boy--why, a boy"d die if he couldn"t whistle."
"I can whistle," said Nell. "I can whistle most as well as you."
"You can"t, Nell," exclaimed Rob, utterly astonished.
For reply, Nelly quietly whistled a bar of Yankee Doodle. Rob stared at her.
"Why, so you can!" said he. "I didn"t know girls ever whistled: I thought they were made so they couldn"t."
"Oh, no!" said Mrs. March; "I used to be a great whistler when I was a girl; but I never let anybody hear me, if I could help it. And Nelly knows that it is not lady-like for a girl to whistle. She likes to whistle as well as you like to say "bully," however; so you might leave off that as well as she can leave off whistling."
"But you used to whistle all alone by yourself," persisted Rob; "and it is just as good fun to whistle all alone as with other people; but it wouldn"t be any fun to go off all alone, and say "bully!
bully! bully!""
Mrs. March put her hands over her ears, and exclaimed: "Oh, Rob!