Chapter V: Ralph's First Railroad Ride

A slender, thin faced, alert looking man was stooping over the boy, and shaking him vigorously. Day had dawned.

"Wake up, young fellow!" continued the stranger, as Ralph gazed at him in a dazed sort of way. "How came you in here?"

"I--I got in out of the rain," said Ralph, staggering to his feet, only to be thrown down again by the jolting of the car, which was in rapid motion.

The sliding door was now open. Ralph glancing out, saw the landscape slipping by at a furious rate of speed.

The sight so astonished him, that he sank back again. To his unaccustomed senses it was as if the earth were turning upside down.

"What's the matter with you? Drunk?"

"No!" almost shouted the boy, suddenly indignant. "I never took a drink in my life. Neither was I ever on such a--a wagon as this before. Lordy! How fast we're going!"

The man roared with laughter.

"Well, you are a curiosity. Where did you come from? Out of the woods?"

"I'm from the mountains. Never was out of them before. Isn't there no danger in going so fast? My! How my head swims when I look out!"

"Not a bit of danger, unless in case of a collision, or when something gives way. But come! Give me an account of yourself. When I find an uninvited stranger aboard my private car, I ought to know something about him, I reckon."

While Ralph gave a brief account of himself and his affairs--omitting the feud, however--his eyes rested first on one strange object, then another.

There was a large pile of canvas at one end of the car, neatly folded. Several tent poles lay along the floor. A large and a small camera, resting on tripods, especially puzzled the boy. There were also several chests and a trunk or two.

At the other end of the car there was a cot bedstead with mattress and bedding, a chair or two, a small table, an oil cooking stove, together with other household paraphernalia.

The whole outfit was simple, yet complete, and did not take up much room.

"Well," said the man, as Ralph concluded his statement, "you seem to be an honest and a plucky lad, though an almighty green one, I guess. Never been anywhere, you say?"

"I've hunted for miles in the mountains, and I've been to a store or two, and to meeting, and to the 'lections. Yes, and I've been to school three months a year ever since I was so high," Ralph indicated the height with his hand. "But grandpa would never let me go off any very great distance from home."

"So you finally took matters into your own hands and gave him leg bail. Well, that ain't bad. But you mustn't go about breaking into people's houses and cars as you did last night. It isn't safe."

"I was lost, and it began to rain. I didn't mean no harm. I can pay my way."

He drew forth some money, under a dim idea that he had heard some one say once, that below the mountains, folks made people pay for about everything they got.

"Keep your cash, my boy," said the man evidently having a better idea of Ralph than at first. "Hold to all you've got. People are not as free with their grub and beds down here as they are up in your country. By the way, what's your name?"

"Ralph Granger. What might be yours?"

"Mine? Oh, my name is Quigg--Lemuel Quigg. I am a traveling photographer."

"What is that?"

"Did I ever see such ignorance! Ralph, you are a curiosity. I take pictures for a living. Usually I go by wagon. But I am bound for the seacoast, so I hired this car to take me right through."

"There was a fellow up in our parts once as took pictures for two bits apiece."

"Like these?" Mr. Quigg threw open one lid of a trunk, disclosing a velvet lined show case filled with photographs of different sizes.

They would now be considered antiquated affairs, but to Ralph the life-like attitudes and looks of the sitters seemed wonderful.

"Gracious, no!" he exclaimed. "That fellow only took little tintypes, as we folks call them. These beat anything I ever saw."

"Well, suppose we get breakfast," said Quigg, turning to his oil stove. "We'll be in Hendersonville in an hour. Can you cook?"

Ralph staggered to the stove, and took a puzzled look.

"I've cooked on a fireplace all my life, more or less. But I don't think much of that thing."

"Don't, eh? Well, well! You'll do for a dime museum, you will. Go and sit down, and watch me."

Ralph took a seat near the door, and divided his time between Mr. Quigg's culinary operations and the swiftly moving panorama outside.

The dizzy, yet smooth, motion of the car, the--to him--miraculous speed, the whirl and shimmer of the landscape--all this fascinated him after his first nervousness wore off.

The artist, however, recalled him from this sort of day dreaming, by saying:

"Ever make biscuit?"

"We eat corn pones mostly at home."

"Well, you can fry some bacon and eggs, I guess."

He gave the boy a small frying pan, showed him where to place it, then lighted his lamp.

"That beats pine knots, don't it?" he asked, while Ralph noted with a new wonder the ease and rapidity with which Mr. Quigg managed everything.

While the meat and eggs were frying, the artist made coffee, thrust some potatoes into the oven beside the biscuit, then completed his morning toilet over a tin basin and a hand mirror.

"Better take a wash and a brush," said he to Ralph. "I'll dish up the breakfast."

So, while Mr. Quigg set the table, the lad washed his face, brushed his hair, and despite his homely looking jeans and rough brogans, presented a very sightly appearance as he sat down opposite the little photographer.

At least so the latter thought, and remained in apparent deep reflection while eating.

Ralph saw the white granulated sugar for the first time, and, mistaking it for salt, was about to sprinkle some on his egg.

"That's a queer way to eat sugar," said Quigg, happening to notice the move.

"Goes pretty good that way, though," returned Ralph, determined to martyr his palate rather than own up to any further ignorance.

He was already beginning to divine the primitive nature of his native manner of life, but the consciousness of this fact only strengthened his desire to familiarize himself with these strange usages.

Quigg laughed, then resumed his reverie.

After the meal was over, Ralph washed the dishes, while the artist made up his bed and otherwise tidied up the car.

Two window sash of unusual size attracted the lad's attention.

"Those are my skylights," said Quigg. "You might polish them up a bit after we leave Hendersonville. That is, if you are going on further."

Ralph had no definite idea as to where he wanted to go, except that he thought of Captain Shard. Regardless of Mrs. Dopples' warning, he now said that he had a notion of going on to Columbia.

"All right," responded Quigg, who liked Ralph's appearance the more he saw of him. "Go on with me. You can help me for your keep until something better offers. I shall stay in Columbia a week, then strike for the coast. What say?"

Ralph assented gladly, and thought himself lucky in being afforded so easy a chance to get forward. Presently he was rubbing away upon the skylights, while Mr. Quigg produced a cornet from somewhere among his belongings, and played sundry doleful airs with indifferent skill, until the train arrived at Hendersonville.

"What do you call that brass horn?" asked Ralph.

"A brass horn! Come! That's good." Quigg laughed loudly. "That is a cornet, and a good one, too! But here we are."

Hendersonville, though but a moderate sized town, seemed to the mountain boy to contain all the world's wonders. Both car doors were thrown wide open, and as they had to remain on a siding until an express went by, Ralph indulged his curiosity fully.

The two and three story buildings, nicely painted and standing so close together, the teams, the stores, the shouting negroes and hurrying whites, were all a startling novelty to him.

"Looks like everybody is a rushin' as if he'd forgot something," he thought. "What a sight of niggers! Good Lord! What's that?"

This last he uttered aloud as the express whizzed by them at a moderate rate of speed.

"That's the train we were waiting for. Now we'll get on, I guess. You see, our train is a freight, and we have to make way for pretty much everything."

Presently their car began to move. As they passed the depot an engine close by blew a whistle, at which the boy started.

The hissing, steaming locomotive was to him the most wonderful thing of all. Truly, the mountain people lived as in another world.

"I am glad I left home," said he to himself. "Grandpa would never have let me know anything. Down here there is a chance to do something and be somebody."

Soon they were again whirling through a semi-level country on their way to the South Carolina line. The corn and cotton fields increased in size, the plantation houses grew larger and began to have stately lawns and groves of woodland about them. The log houses seemed to be mostly inhabited by negroes. Ralph finished his skylights, then assisted Mr. Quigg in getting dinner. The afternoon wore slowly away; then they ate a cold supper, washed down by some warm coffee. The train moved haltingly, having to wait at sidings for other trains that had the right of way. Night came, and Ralph took a blanket and lay down for a nap, having not yet "caught up with his sleep," as he said to the artist.

Mr. Quigg lighted a lamp and sat down over a novel. Ralph slumbered on with his bundle for a pillow.

Once, when he wakened for a moment, he saw as in a dream, the strange inside of the car with the photographer quietly reading; then he dropped off again.

The next thing he was conscious of was being pulled into a sitting position, and hearing a voice in his ear calling:

"Hello there! Wake up! Chickens are crowing for day!"