Nan Sherwoods Winter Holidays | Page 7

and the engineer spent most of the night discussing ways and means. Meanwhile the snow continued to fall and the passengers, for the most part, rested in ignorance of the peril that threatened.
CHAPTER IV
CAST AWAY IN THE SNOW
It was Bess who came back from the ladies' room on the Pullman and startled Nan Sherwood by shaking her by the shoulder as she lay in the upper berth, demanding:
"Have you any idea what time it is, Nan? Say! have you?"
"No-o--ouch!" yawned her chum. "Goodness! That was my elbow. There's not much room on these shelves, is there?"
"Do you hear me?" shrilled Bess. "What time do you suppose it is?"
"Oh, dear me! Is that a conundrum?" asked Nan, with but faint interest.
"Wake up!" and Bess pinched her. "I never knew you so stupid before. See my watch, Nan," and she held the small gold time-piece she had owned since her last birthday, so that her chum could see its face.
"A quarter to eight," read Nan from the dial. "Well! that's not so late. I know we're allowed to remain in the car till eight. I'll hurry. But, oh! isn't it dark outside?"
"Now, you're showing a little common sense," snapped Bess. "But do you see that my watch has stopped?"
"Oh! so it has," agreed Nan. "But, then, honey, you're always letting it run down."
"I know," said Bess, impatiently. "And at first I thought it must have stopped last evening at a quarter to eight. When I woke up just now it was just as dark as it was yesterday morning at six. But I took a peep at the porter's clock and what do you think?"
"I'll shave you for nothing and give you a drink," laughed Nan, quoting the old catch-line.
Bess was too excited to notice her chum's fun. She said, dramatically:
"The porter's clock says half-past nine and half the berths are put up again at the other end of the car!"
"Mercy!" gasped Nan, and swung her feet over the edge of the berth. "Oh!" she squealed the next moment.
"What's the matter now?" demanded her chum.
"Oh! I feel like a poor soldier who's having his legs cut off. My! isn't the edge of this berth sharp?"
"But what do you know about its being half-past nine?" demanded Bess.
"And the train is standing still," said Nan. "Do you suppose we can be at Tillbury?"
"Goodness! we ought to be," said Bess. "But it is so dark."
"And Papa Sherwood would be down in the yards looking for me before this time, I know."
"Well! what do you think it means?" demanded her chum. "And b-r-r-r! it's cold. There isn't half enough steam on in this car."
Nan was scrambling into her outer garments. "I'll see about this in a minute, Bess," she said, chuckling. "Maybe the sun's forgotten to rise."
Bess had managed to draw aside the curtain of the big window. She uttered a muffled scream.
"Oh, Nan! It's sno-ow!"
"What? Still snowing?" asked her chum.
"No. It's all banked up against the pane. I can't see out at all."
"Goodness--gracious--me!" ejaculated Nan. "Do you suppose we're snowed in?"
That was just exactly what it meant. The porter, his eyes rolling, told them all about it. The train had stood just here, "in the middle of a snow-bank," since midnight. It was still snowing. And the train was covered in completely with the soft and clinging mantle.
At first the two chums bound for Tillbury were only excited and pleased by the novel situation. The porter arranged their seats for them and Bess proudly produced the box of lunch she had bought at Freeling, and of which they had eaten very little.
"Tell me how smart I am, Nan Sherwood!" she cried. "Wish we had a cup of coffee apiece."
At that very moment the porter and conductor entered the car with a steaming can of the very comforting fluid Bess had just mentioned. The porter distributed waxed paper cups from the water cooler for each passenger's use and the conductor judiciously poured the cups half full of coffee.
"You two girls are very lucky," he said, when he saw what was in the lunch-box. "Take care of your food supply. No knowing when we'll get out of this drift."
"Why, mercy!" ejaculated Bess. "I don't know that I care to live for long on stale sandwiches and pie, washed down by the most miserable coffee I ever tasted."
"Well, I suppose it's better to live on this sort of food than to die on no food at all," Nan said, laughing.
It seemed to be all a joke at first. There were only a few people in the Pullman, and everybody was cheerful and inclined to take the matter pleasantly. Being snow-bound in a train was such a novel experience that no unhappy phase of the situation deeply impressed any of the passengers' minds.
Breakfast was meagre, it was true. The