PAGE 2
A Chinee Kid
by
After a while he began to thrill with the desire to know how it would feel to run backward on the track in front of the moving engine. He had had a brief glimpse of the possibility of that bliss as he crossed the track one day when the train was coming in; and the more he thought about it, the surer he felt that some day he would have to do it. He was well acquainted by that time with the engines, and the engineers too, and his trick of standing astride the rail and looking up with sparkling, defiant eyes at the engine’s noble front was only a sort of preparation for other deeds.
One day he had assisted at the dismounting of the passengers, had seen the last departing traveller disappear inside the cars, had had his queue pulled by the news agent, and a narrow escape from being knocked over by the baggage man’s trunk van, when he started off at top speed to get in front of the engine before the train should start. A young woman with a baggage check in her hand was standing near an omnibus waiting for the driver to come. Wing’s headlong speed would have carried him safely past her, but a big man with two suit-cases was rushing toward him, and as he veered to one side he struck heavily against the girl. The blow knocked her against the steps of the omnibus and sent Wing sprawling in the dust.
A slender, trim-looking young man, who had got off the train and was about to enter the omnibus of another hotel, saw the collision and sprang to her assistance. Helping her to her feet, he asked anxiously if she was hurt, and then seized Wing’s arm and gave him a little shaking.
“You young rascal!” he exclaimed. “Why don’t you look where you are going?”
“Oh, don’t scold him, please!” the girl pleaded. “He did n’t intend to do it, and I ‘m not hurt at all. Wing, how do you do? Did it hurt you?”
Wing was indignantly tearing himself loose from the young man’s hand and was looking wishfully after the departing train and the lost opportunity.
“Lemme go,” he demanded. “No, didn’t hurt.”
The young woman blushingly thanked the stranger as he helped her into the vehicle. Then, instead of returning to the other omnibus, which was waiting for him, he shook his head at the driver and stepped in after her. As they rattled up the street he found it difficult to keep his eyes off her slender, supple figure and the shining glory of golden-red hair that aureoled the clear, soft brilliance of her pink and white complexion. When she looked up once and caught his look of admiration she blushed deeply and endeavored to disguise her embarrassment in lively talk with some people who sat near her. The newcomer saw that they were evidently old friends and inferred that she was a resident of the town. From scraps of their talk that reached his ears he learned that her name was Annie Millner, and that she was a physician’s daughter.’
The young man inscribed his name on the hotel register, “Robert Ellison, Worcester, Mass.,” and then sauntered out to take a look at the town. He watched the omnibus from which he had just dismounted, as it stopped in front of a pretty cottage set back in some pleasant grounds on the slope of the opposite hill, until he saw Miss Millner enter the gate.
“I guess I ‘ll like it better here than I expected to,” was his thought as his eye followed her figure. “This air feels good, the sunshine is fine, and that’s a glorious blue sky. They say I ‘m likely to become an invalid if I try to live East any longer, and so that’s cut out. Well, a fellow could have plenty of out-door life here, and enjoy it, if there are many days like this. It looks as if there ‘d be money in these orchards too. I reckon Dr. Millner must live in that cottage. What an inviting looking place it is! I guess I ‘d better go back to the hotel and ask the clerk about the physicians here. I might need one sometime.”