“Sure, but his head was used to it by then, I guess. Child, do you feel well?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look so good. Kind of pale. I suppose it might just be that you washed off a lot of the dirt when I told you to wash that face. You think it could be that?”
“I feel all right.”
“Here, let me see if you’re hot.” Little Tib felt Nitty’s big, rough hand against his forehead. “You feel a bit hot to me.”
“I’m not sick.”
“Look there! You see that? There was a bear out there. A big old bear, black as could be.”
“Probably it was a dog.”
“You think I don’t know a bear? It stood up and waved at us.”
“Really, Nitty?”
“Well, not like a person would. It didn’t say
A strange voice, a lady’s voice, Little Tib thought, said, “Hello there yourself.” He heard the thump as somebody’s feet hit the floor of the boxcar, then another thump as somebody else’s did.
“Now wait a minute,” Nitty said. “Now you look here.”
“Don’t get excited,” another lady’s voice told him.
“Don’t you try to throw us off of this train. I got a little boy here, a little blind boy. He can’t jump off no train.”
Mr. Parker said, “What’s going on here, Nitty?”
“Railroad police, Mr. Parker. They’re going to make us jump off of this train.”
Little Tib could hear the scraping sounds Mr. Parker made when he stood up, and wondered whether Mr. Parker was a big man or a little man, and how old he was. He had a pretty good idea about Nitty, but Little Tib was not sure of Mr. Parker, though he thought Mr. Parker was pretty young. He decided he was also medium sized.
“Let me introduce myself,” Mr. Parker said. “As superintendent, I am in charge of the three schools in the Martinsburg area.”
“Hi,” one of the ladies said.
“You will begin with the lower grades, as all of our new teachers do. As you gain seniority, you may move up if you wish. What are your specialties?”
“Are you playing a game?”
Nitty said, “He didn’t quite understand—he just woke up. You woke him up.”
“Sure.”
“You going to throw us off the train?”
“How far are you going?”
“Just to Howard. Only that far. Now you listen, this little boy is blind, and sick too. We want to take him to the doctor at Howard—he ran away from home.”
Mr. Parker said, “I will not leave this school until I am ready. I am in charge of the entire district.”
“Mr. Parker isn’t exactly altogether well either,” Nitty told the women.
“What has he been using?”
“He’s just like that sometimes.”
“He sounds like he’s been shooting up on chalk.”
Little Tib asked, “What’s your name?”
“Say,” Nitty said, “that’s right. You know, I never did ask that. This little boy here is telling me I’m not polite.”
“I’m Alice,” one of the ladies said.
“Mickie,” said the other.
“And we don’t want to know your names,” Alice continued. “See, suppose someway they heard you were on the train—we’d have to say who you were.”
“And where you were going,” Mickie put in.
“Nice people like you—why do you want to be railroad police?”
Alice laughed. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? I’ve heard that one before.”
“Watch yourself, Alice,” Mickey said. “He’s trying to make out.”
Alice said, “What’d you three want to be ’boes for?”
“We didn’t. ’Cept maybe for this little boy here. He run away from home because the part of his eyes that they take pictures of is gone and his momma and daddy couldn’t get benefits. At least, that’s what I think. Is that right, George?”
