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Page 1
What Two Children Did
_CHAPTER I_
_On the Way_
In the train we're watching
Outdoors speeding by:
Endless moving pictures,
Framed by earth and sky.
"Mistakes are very easy to make, I think," said Ethelwyn, with an uneasy
look at her mother who sat opposite, thinking hard about something. The
reason Ethelwyn knew her mother was thinking, was because at such times
two little lines came and stood between her eyes, like sentinels.
"Do you think God made a mistake when He sent us here?" asked Beth.
They were in a Pullman car which was moving rapidly along in the
darkness. Inside it was very bright and beautiful, and would have been
most interesting to the children, had it not been for those two lines in
their dear mother's face.
"She is thinking about the naughty things we have done," said Ethelwyn
to Beth in a tragic tone, at the same time taking a mournful bite out of
a large, sugary cooky. They had eaten steadily since starting, and any
one who did not understand children, would have been alarmed at possible
consequences.
On the seat between them there was a hospitable-looking basket with a
handle over the middle and two covers that opened on either side of the
handle. Underneath the covers and the napkins the children, entirely to
their joy, had found sandwiches without limit. Some were cut round,
others square, and all were without crust; inside they found minced
chicken, creamy and delicious, also ham and a little mustard, and best
of all were the small, brown squares with peanut butter between.
"It's like Christmas or a birthday, having these sandwiches," said
Ethelwyn. "They're all different and all good, and each one seems better
than the others."
Then they began on the cookies, and bit scallops out of the edges, while
between times they thought about their last mistake and their mother's
forehead lines.
Sitting up straight against the velvet cushioned seat, the two children
looked about the same age; the two heads were nearly on a level, as were
both pairs of feet stuck out straight in front of them; but Ethelwyn's
came a little farther out than Beth's, and her golden head came a little
farther up on the seat than Beth's dark one.
Just now there was a small cloud on their horizon. Although they found
the interior of their palace car, the porter, and the passengers,
fascinating, and the luncheon an endless feast, they both felt that
before they slept they must straighten things out; hence their first
question.
Mrs. Rayburn came back presently to a realizing consciousness of the two
anxious faces opposite hers, and with a smile dismissed the sentinel
lines.
"God never makes mistakes," said she, with refreshing faith and
emphasis. "It is we who do that."
"I think," said Beth, slowly pondering on this, "that the old surplus in
the garden of Eden who bothered Adam and Eve has something to do with
it."
"Serpent, child," said Ethelwyn crushingly, beginning on cake.
"Surplus, I mean," said Beth, getting out a piece of cake for herself.
"I'd give a good deal, sister, if you wouldn't always count your
chickens before they're hatched!" Whereupon she climbed down and went
over to sit by her mother, where she glared indignantly at her sister.
Her dear "bawheady" doll was in her arms.
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