Anna Alice Chapin

“ In the small hours before morning Pippa Carpenter lay in her berth, staring into the night. The girl tramp, with a little extra money in the pocket of Philippa's dust coat, was safe on board the limited bound for Los Angeles, and had promised to write the day after she got there. Now that it was all over, Pippa felt profoundly tired, but the boredom of the afternoon had quite evaporated. She was a-thrill with adventure and interest. Life once more showed possibilities for exploration. ”

“ He seemed about fifteen or sixteen, though some haunted, hunted look about his tense mouth suggested that he might be older, in experience, if not in years.
“Why,” gasped Pippa, “you're hardly more than a child, are you?”
“Eighteen,” said the tramp, in a rather tired voice.
“Do—do you have to do this?” asked Mrs. Carpenter, genuinely aghast.
“Ride the rods? You bet I do! Do you think I'd be doing it for fun?”
The boy did not seem to mean to be impertinent; he was simply quite candid, and very weary.
“When did you get on?” asked Philippa, amazement giving full place to pity. ”

“ Joe had the door open, and Pippa and her tramp passed swiftly through the darkness to the stateroom.
The train started, and the porter suddenly found himself mysteriously able to switch on the refractory electric lights. He had also contrived to make up the stateroom berth in miraculously quick time, and the girl fell in a limp little heap upon it. For the first time Philippa was able to see what she really looked like. The slender, boyish body, the roughly cropped dark hair, the firm little jaw, and the tightly set young mouth all lent themselves to the masquerade she was playing. ”

“ With a shiver, in spite of the soft air that blew against her face, she got up and went to the back platform of the train. They were slowing up at a way station, and experience had proved to her that in the Western States a stop at a station was a stop; not a mere formal call, but a comfortable, lengthy visit. So she descended, and began to walk up and down, the while she looked disgustedly at the town, most of which was visible from the station.
“Twenty-two saloons,” she counted aloud. “And a Sunday school! What a comment on the civilization of the West!” ”

“ The girl tramp opened her great eyes, and gazed up wonderingly into Mrs. Carpenter's.
“I didn't know there were any women as good as you,” she said slowly.
Pippa winced. “I'm not good,” she said simply.
But the tramp was persistent.
“You bet you are!” she declared. “Most women would have just said, 'It isn't my business,' and let it go at that. You didn't!”
“Maybe,” said Philippa, in a low voice, “it's because I'm not—good—that I—didn't.” ”

“ The girl tramp fell back upon the pillow with a cry like that of a hurt animal.
“I'll be too late!' she moaned. “I'll be too late!”
“Isn't there a chance,” demanded Philippa, “of their holding the express?”
“No, ma'am! Dat am de gilt-edged limited, ma'am, an' it don' wait fo' nuffin'!”
Pippa began to think; to think harder and faster than she had ever thought in her life. ”

“ Most of us have experienced moments in which the salt and savor of life seem chiefly conspicuous by their absence, in which we exist rather than live, and in which we can find no conceivable incentive toward hope, optimism, courage, or even interest. ”

“ She saw almost instantly that there was only one thing to be done. She had never been willing to accept a favor for herself from that Chicago man; but here was some one with a right to his favors. She turned swiftly to the porter.
“Please get me a telegraph blank,” she said.
The girl soon slept the deep sleep of weakness and fatigue, and Mrs. Carpenter ate a solitary dinner, and watched the hands of her little traveling clock.
At ten o'clock, Joe handed in a yellow envelope. Pippa tore it open. The message was characteristically brief and to the point:
Telegram received. ”

“ And the spell and the call are likely to grip you at all sorts of inopportune times and places, pulling—pulling—pulling you back to the sunset country and the long trail that leads to the elder worlds. ”

“ That, after all, is the whole of this human game of ours—interest. While we are interested, we can get along famously. We may suffer, rejoice, frivol, starve, feast, fail, or make money, but so long as we are not bored, it does not matter very much which. ”

“ And the girl told her; adding, “He's 'way up in G, and owns mines, and railroads, and yachts, and little things like that. I guess a girl more or less doesn't matter a whole heap to him!”
Pippa sat still, wondering at the wild improbabilities that color this our human life. “When we read about these things in novels and magazines,” she said to herself, “and when we see them on the stage, we say they're impossible. Yet they go on happening right along!”
For Pippa knew the man. ”

“ This particular train stopped at a varied assortment of ash heaps, wood piles, and water tanks—for the stopping places could certainly not be dignified by terms more pretentious—and Philippa soon had another opportunity to slip from the back platform. While ostensibly viewing a sleepy and unattractive little way station, occupied, seemingly, only by a blind negro and a mangy cat, she addressed the girl tramp once more:
“Why did you leave home?”
The tramp laughed huskily. “Why do girls leave home? ”