The Railway Children - E. Nesbit (interesting novels to read txt) 📗

angry with herself that she allowed Roberta to use that expression to Bobbie.

She fixed the little candle end on a broken brick near the red-jerseyed boy’s feet. Then she opened Peter’s knife. It was always hard to manage⁠—a halfpenny was generally needed to get it open at all. This time Bobbie somehow got it open with her thumbnail. She broke the nail, and it hurt horribly. Then she cut the boy’s bootlace, and got the boot off. She tried to pull off his stocking, but his leg was dreadfully swollen, and it did not seem to be the proper shape. So she cut the stocking down, very slowly and carefully. It was a brown, knitted stocking, and she wondered who had knitted it, and whether it was the boy’s mother, and whether she was feeling anxious about him, and how she would feel when he was brought home with his leg broken. When Bobbie had got the stocking off and saw the poor leg, she felt as though the tunnel was growing darker, and the ground felt unsteady, and nothing seemed quite real.

“Silly little girl!” said Roberta to Bobbie, and felt better.

“The poor leg,” she told herself; “it ought to have a cushion⁠—ah!”

She remembered the day when she and Phyllis had torn up their red flannel petticoats to make danger signals to stop the train and prevent an accident. Her flannel petticoat today was white, but it would be quite as soft as a red one. She took it off.

“Oh, what useful things flannel petticoats are!” she said; “the man who invented them ought to have a statue directed to him.” And she said it aloud, because it seemed that any voice, even her own, would be a comfort in that darkness.

“What ought to be directed? Who to?” asked the boy, suddenly and very feebly.

“Oh,” said Bobbie, “now you’re better! Hold your teeth and don’t let it hurt too much. Now!”

She had folded the petticoat, and lifting his leg laid it on the cushion of folded flannel.

“Don’t faint again, please don’t,” said Bobbie, as he groaned. She hastily wetted her handkerchief with milk and spread it over the poor leg.

“Oh, that hurts,” cried the boy, shrinking. “Oh⁠—no, it doesn’t⁠—it’s nice, really.”

“What’s your name?” said Bobbie.

“Jim.”

“Mine’s Bobbie.”

“But you’re a girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes, my long name’s Roberta.”

“I say⁠—Bobbie.”

“Yes?”

“Wasn’t there some more of you just now?”

“Yes, Peter and Phil⁠—that’s my brother and sister. They’ve gone to get someone to carry you out.”

“What rum names. All boys’.”

“Yes⁠—I wish I was a boy, don’t you?”

“I think you’re all right as you are.”

“I didn’t mean that⁠—I meant don’t you wish you were a boy, but of course you are without wishing.”

“You’re just as brave as a boy. Why didn’t you go with the others?”

“Somebody had to stay with you,” said Bobbie.

“Tell you what, Bobbie,” said Jim, “you’re a brick. Shake.” He reached out a red-jerseyed arm and Bobbie squeezed his hand.

“I won’t shake it,” she explained, “because it would shake you, and that would shake your poor leg, and that would hurt. Have you got a hanky?”

“I don’t expect I have.” He felt in his pocket. “Yes, I have. What for?”

She took it and wetted it with milk and put it on his forehead.

“That’s jolly,” he said; “what is it?”

“Milk,” said Bobbie. “We haven’t any water⁠—”

“You’re a jolly good little nurse,” said Jim.

“I do it for Mother sometimes,” said Bobbie⁠—“not milk, of course, but scent, or vinegar and water. I say, I must put the candle out now, because there mayn’t be enough of the other one to get you out by.”

“By George,” said he, “you think of everything.”

Bobbie blew. Out went the candle. You have no idea how black-velvety the darkness was.

“I say, Bobbie,” said a voice through the blackness, “aren’t you afraid of the dark?”

“Not⁠—not very, that is⁠—”

“Let’s hold hands,” said the boy, and it was really rather good of him, because he was like most boys of his age and hated all material tokens of affection, such as kissing and holding of hands. He called all such things “pawings,” and detested them.

The darkness was more bearable to Bobbie now that her hand was held in the large rough hand of the red-jerseyed sufferer; and he, holding her little smooth hot paw, was surprised to find that he did not mind it so much as he expected. She tried to talk, to amuse him, and “take his mind off” his sufferings, but it is very difficult to go on talking in the dark, and presently they found themselves in a silence, only broken now and then by a⁠—

“You all right, Bobbie?”

or an⁠—

“I’m afraid it’s hurting you most awfully, Jim. I am so sorry.”

And it was very cold.

Peter and Phyllis tramped down the long way of the tunnel towards daylight, the candle-grease dripping over Peter’s fingers. There were no accidents unless you count Phyllis’s catching her frock on a wire, and tearing a long, jagged slit in it, and tripping over her bootlace when it came undone, or going down on her hands and knees, all four of which were grazed.

“There’s no end to this tunnel,” said Phyllis⁠—and indeed it did seem very very long.

“Stick to it,” said Peter; “everything has an end, and you get to it if you only keep all on.”

Which is quite true, if you come to think of it, and a useful thing to remember in seasons of trouble⁠—such as measles, arithmetic, impositions, and those times when you are in disgrace, and feel as though no one would ever love you again, and you could never⁠—never again⁠—love anybody.

“Hurray,” said Peter, suddenly, “there’s the end of the tunnel⁠—looks just like a pinhole in a bit of black paper, doesn’t it?”

The pinhole got larger⁠—blue lights lay along the sides of the tunnel. The children could see the gravel way that lay in front of them; the air grew warmer and sweeter. Another twenty steps and they were out in the good glad sunshine with the green trees on both sides.

Phyllis drew