The Bishop and the Boogerman — Context and Discussion

Sanders had come after her; and then, my goodness gracious! she was so full of anticipation and joy that she was frightened for herself. The kind ladies who had had charge of her told her not to be frightened, and to be very good, but she just rolled her big blue eyes, and had long, long thoughts about things of which she never breathed a word. She started at last, and went with Mr. Sanders on the choo-choo train, and such a time as the two had buying tickets to Malvern, and laughing at the people they saw, and getting their baggage checked, and getting on the train, and watching the station slide back away from them so they could get a good start--such a time has hardly been repeated for anybody from that day to this.

A man caught a cinder in his eye, and ran with such speed to the water-cooler that he turned the whole thing over; and it came down with such a crash that everybody was frightened except Mr. Sanders and Adelaide. Women screamed, babies squalled, and all the time the cinder man was saying things under his breath, and some of them sounded to Adelaide like the words that her good friend, the Peskerwhalian Bishop, used in his sermon, only they were not so fierce and emphatic. The child glanced around, and remarked with a satisfied smile: "It didn't scare Cally-Lou." "I reckon not," Mr. Sanders remarked, although he had no idea what Adelaide meant.

Well, they reached Malvern in due time, and there, right at the station, was the stage-coach, which was driven by John Bell. Mr. Sanders introduced Adelaide to the driver, who took off his hat and bowed very gravely, and after that it was only a few minutes before they were on their way to Shady Dale. If the choo-choo train had been fine, the stage-coach was finer; it was like getting in a swing and staying there a long time. There were a few passengers in the coach, and they all appeared to be very sleepy. When they nodded, as the most of them did, they fell about somewhat promiscuously--though Adelaide didn't think of that word--and made it somewhat uncomfortable for the child, who was wide awake and alert. But when they came to the place where the horses were watered, John Bell leaned from his seat, and saw at a glance what Adelaide's trouble was. In a jiffy he had her up on the swaying seat beside him. It would have been a frightful position for most children, but Adelaide thought it was the grandest thing in the world. She was seated almost directly above the two wheel horses, and not very far from the leaders. She could see their muscles rise and fall as they whirled the coach along; she could see the flecks of foam made by the harness, and--well, it was just glorious! She had what Mr. Sanders called the Christmas feeling--the feeling that is ever ready to become awe or delight--and the swing of the stage-coach kept her alternating between the two.

It was wonderful, too, how one man could manage four great big horses, how he could guide them by merely touching one of the reins with the end of a finger; and then, when John Bell gave his long whip wide play, sending it through the air with a swish, and bringing it down as gently as a breath of wind on the back of the horse he desired to warn, Adelaide could have screamed with delight. There was a half-way house where the horses were changed, and when the coach stopped for that purpose, most of the passengers went into a near-by inn for their dinner. One or two of them, however, had brought a lunch along. One of them offered Adelaide a share, saying: "Won't you have some of my dinner, Sissy?" Her mother had called her many fond names, but nothing like that. John Bell glanced at her, and the expression on the little face opened his eyes. "No, I thank you," he replied, "she'll go snucks wi' me." She snuggled up to John Bell--"Did you hear him?" she asked; "he called me Sissy." "I heard him," said John Bell; "I heard every word, and just how he said it."