Читать книгу Mary Jane in France - Clara Ingram Judson - Страница 4

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Slowly the boat swung around till the town of Calais lay on the right. It passed the lighthouses, the breakwater and the boats in the harbor and headed toward a dock where a long, low shed covered part of the boat train—only part of the engine stuck out from the shelter but it was smoking busily, eager to be gone.

On the wharf, as they drew nearer, was great confusion and much shouting. At first, the girls couldn’t make out what all the excitement was about, but before the boat was made fast they could understand the shouts from the dozens of blue coated men struggling for a place near the landing point.

“Por-teur!” they were saying. “Port-teur! Por-teur! Por-teur!”

“What does that mean, Daddah?” asked Mary Jane as she repeated it over to herself.

“It means they want to carry our bags,” said Mr. Merrill. “I think they are trying to engage the job before they come on board.”

“Yes, they are,” said Alice, pleased to be understanding. “See that man there? He is holding up the number on his coat for you to see. There, the Englishman has engaged him and see how pleased he is.”

“Let’s get one right away,” cried Mary Jane, eagerly, “before the best ones are taken.”

“It looks to me as though there were plenty to go around,” laughed Mr. Merrill, “but if you want it settled, we’ll do it. Which man shall we get?”

The girls leaned over the railing to look. The boat was now only a few feet from the dock and the gangplank was suspended ready to drop in a few seconds. They looked at the shouting mob of blue coated men and wondered if all those men could ever get aboard and do anything as useful as carrying baggage.

“Let’s get that one there,” suggested Alice pointing to an eager face some feet back from the front line. The man spied her and held up his number which by now they were close enough to see plainly.

“He’s forty-one,” said Mary Jane; “see Daddah, he’s pointing to you so you will surely see that he is engaged by us.” The man caught at the metal tag on his blue shirt—a tag about as big as a policeman’s star and as shiny, only round in shape, and held it till Mr. Merrill, noticing how other travelers did, held up his fingers—four and then one and nodded. This seemed to satisfy the porter for he stopped shouting. There was such a crowd on the boat that all porters, even though there were so many, seemed to be engaged and the minute the gangplank was down they swarmed aboard and hunted up their employers.

When number forty-one presented himself before the Merrills with a low bow, the girls thought he couldn’t possibly carry all their bags as he was small and slight. But they were not yet acquainted with the continental porters who are amazingly strong tho they look small and slender. With a grin of friendliness, he tucked one big bag under his arm, took two in one hand and the biggest one in the other and motioned them to follow him down the stairs. By this time the deck was swarming with porters, all jabbering away in lively French, and in the midst of this amazing confusion the Merrills were only too glad to follow a pair of shoulders that pushed and shoved and got them ashore in safety.

As they walked away from the boat, the porter turned to Mr. Merrill and asked a question which wasn’t understood. He tried again with another word but still Mr. Merrill didn’t understand, so he set down one bag, pointed with his free hand to an imaginary coat pocket and said, “tick—ette?”

“He wants to see your ticket, Daddah,” said Alice, delighted with the pantomime.

“He’s just like a red cap at home, I think,” said Mary Jane; “he wants to know where we are going to sit.”

Off they went toward the waiting train.

Mr. Merrill pulled out his tickets, and with one glance the porter motioned them to follow him again and off they went toward the waiting train.

It was rather different from the English boat train—longer cars and bigger looking, but it had the same general arrangement of a corridor on one side and compartments opening off. They found a nice compartment, as yet unoccupied and the porter settled their bags under the seat and in the rack overhead. Then Mr. Merrill paid him in French coins which he had been careful to get on the boat dock in Dover and he went off smiling and saying something that sounded like good wishes.

“He’s a good humored one,” laughed Mr. Merrill, much pleased to find himself settled so nicely while so many people were still racing hither and yon along the train shed. “I guess he likes carrying bags for girls.”

“Or maybe he likes your pocketbook,” added Alice, with the wisdom of an experienced traveler. “I think I’d care about money if I had to earn my living carrying bags—some are even heavier than ours.”

Just then two Englishmen were shown into the Merrills’ compartment and the six people with many, many bags so filled the room that the girls stood in the corridor till the grownups had stowed away luggage more comfortably. They were glad of the excuse to stand outside the compartment tho, for the corridor was on the boat side of the train and it was fun to see bewildered travelers dashing up and down the cars, hunting first class or second class cars. People looked so comical, running around, hurrying here and there and the girls felt very lofty and superior to be aboard and so at home before most of the passengers were settled.

Soon the hurry and bustle increased; officials walked up and down, passengers hurried still more and in an amazingly short time the train was off—pulling slowly away from the village and then getting up a speed that made the trains at home seem slow by comparison.

“We’re really in France! Can you believe it, Mary Jane?” asked Alice. “This is France we are riding thru!”

“And I’m just as hungry as tho we were at home,” said Mary Jane, suddenly feeling that breakfast at the Victoria had been hours and hours and hours ago and that she had nothing but a very empty feeling below her pretty traveling frock.

“I never thought to ask what we do about eating,” said Alice. “Maybe Daddah knows. Let’s ask.”

They turned back into the compartment, but Mr. Merrill, when questioned, confessed that he didn’t know. “But I’m not worrying,” he added. “I’m not the first hungry traveler that has landed in France and I have an idea that if I wait, something will be done about it.”

“Luncheon will be served in the restaurant car in the few minutes,” said one of the Englishmen, kindly. “And if the little ladies are hungry, perhaps you can get a first sitting.” The gentleman spoke in the casual way that shows much traveling, so Mary Jane was much comforted and encouraged, tho she couldn’t help hoping that they would hear about the restaurant car soon.

It was not long before a trainman came thru with tickets for luncheon and Mr. Merrill was able to get four sittings at the first serving which was then ready. The girls made haste to wash their hands and to follow him into the dining car.

“Now what shall we order?” wondered Mary Jane, as she sat down at the little table and looked about for a menu card. But it soon appeared that one didn’t order and that it did no good for her to make up her mind. The luncheon was served in full, all five courses, and one ate what there was or went hungry. There was soup, served from great bowls that were passed from table to table; then fish; and meat and potatoes; later a salad and then fruit, coffee and cheeses. All delicious and served in such a different fashion that Mary Jane was delighted with the novelty.

Between courses they looked out on the landscape they were dashing by, and glimpsed small farms, tree-lined roads and newly built villages but the speed of the train was so great that plates, if not watched, were apt to dance around too much for comfort. So in the main the girls tended to their eating and let the looking out the window go till later. The whole carful of diners, having been served at once, left all at once and before they were quite away the busy waiters were whisking on clean table linen and making ready for the second serving that was to follow immediately.

“I think that’s a very nice way to do,” said Mary Jane, thoughtfully, as they went back to their compartment, two cars away. “We had a taste of everything and we didn’t have to look across the isle and see that somebody had ordered something we didn’t think of getting and that looks so good we wish we had it.”

Mr. Merrill laughed. “And you liked the cheese,” he added, amused at her satisfaction and pleasure.

“Oh, wasn’t it good, Daddah!” exclaimed Mary Jane. “And now what do we do next?”

“We sit right here by the window and watch the country,” replied Alice, who, now that she was no longer hungry, was greatly interested in the scenes they were passing.

The two nice Englishmen left just as the Merrills returned to the compartment, as they had chosen to have their luncheon at the second sitting, so the girls sat by the windows, facing each other and Mr. Merrill pulled out his map and sat by Mary Jane.

“We’ve passed Boulogne,” he showed them, “and soon we’ll be coming to Amiens, so watch carefully.”

“Boulogne!” said Alice, “that’s the word that was on the station at the town we passed while we were in the diner. I couldn’t quite remember. But what I don’t see, Daddah, is why there are so many little tiny houses with tin roofs. Regular shacks, they are, not painted or fixed nicely at all.”

“There are some now!” cried Mary Jane, pointing out the window at the rows and rows of shacks coming into view even as Alice spoke. “I thought French houses were going to be so pretty.”

“As they are, my dear,” replied her father. “But in this part of the country the war did much damage. Look at the map and see how near Belgium we are even now. Whole cities and villages were ruined right along here. Those dismal rows of shacks are the temporary houses that were built at the end of the war to make a shelter for the people when they returned to find their homes destroyed. I hope before long all these can be taken down and that there will be comfortable, new houses replacing the beautiful, old ones that were destroyed.”

The train slowed up to pass thru the city of Amiens and the girls silently watched so as to see as much as possible of the city. At a distance they could see some towers and large buildings—some looking quite new, some old—but along near by were dozens and dozens of shacks—reminders of the destruction of the war.

“Why do they have war?” asked Mary Jane, much puzzled to make any sense of it.

“Because people haven’t yet learned to live together fairly,” said Mr. Merrill. “But they are learning. And some day, I hope by the time you are grown up, war will be known as the wicked thing it really is, not as brave and heroic as it has been thought to be. So look hard, girls, and see what it leaves behind. And when you are grown up, don’t forget what you see to-day.”

Alice and Mary Jane looked thoughtfully at the strange scenes from their windows but they were glad when the war country was finally passed and when the villages and farms no longer showed wreckage and temporary rebuilding; but was peaceful and beautiful as it naturally should be.

“And that wasn’t anything at all to what you’d have seen a few years ago,” said Mrs. Merrill as the war country was left behind. “After we get well acquainted with Paris, perhaps we can drive out through the war country east of here so you can see more of what it is like. But now we must look the other way. We’ll be coming to Paris soon.”

But the arrival wasn’t as soon as she had expected. The girls had time to stand in the corridors and watch the sights on one side of the train and to come back into the compartments and look out of those windows—changing several times before the train actually came to the environs of the great city.

“Is this really Paris?” Mary Jane asked, as the train slowed and they passed blocks of buildings.

“Look from the corridor windows,” suggested one of the Englishmen. “If you see the shining white dome of the Sacré-Cœur it is Paris.”

Mary Jane whispered the strange words over to herself as she hurried to the window. How ever would she know the “shining dome of the Sacré-Cœur,” when she saw it? She didn’t know. But the Englishman, tho kind, was so quiet and dignified that she thought she had better look first, and then ask if she couldn’t find it.

She held to the rail at the corridor window and looked across the roofs. High on a hill was a great white building topped with a dome that caught the afternoon sunlight and spread it into golden gleams. No use to ask whether she would know the shining dome when she saw it! There it was.

“I see it!” she cried, turning toward the doorway of her compartment. “I see it right over there! Look, Alice!”

Alice ran to look but barely had one glimpse, before the train turned and lost itself in the dark approach to the Nord Station. Porters ran along by their car, shouting for luggage; people ran hurrying thru the corridors—all was confusion, hurry and noise. Mary Jane shut her eyes a minute to remember the beautiful dome. But she opened them quickly again because she didn’t want to miss anything.

And as the Merrills gathered up their bags and maps, Mary Jane fairly danced in her eagerness to be out and see more. “There’s the travel man!” she called as she saw a familiar name on a cap. “He’s smiling at us. Let’s get off and find him.” So in the excitement of arrival, the familiar name gave a comfortable feeling—this was Paris and they were going to have a beautiful time.