OFF FOR THE WILDS 179 



color, amused the writer very much by their quaint 

 ways. They were bound for the Seattle exposition, 

 and, as the train rushed along through the hills and 

 valleys of the Keystone state, everything seemed new 

 and startling to them. The wife once, on returning 

 from the women's compartment, got by her husband 

 without seeing him, and was just turning into the nar- 

 row passageway at the far end of the car when he 

 called to her in a high, querulous voice : 



" Be ye a-goin' to leave me, E-liz-a ? " 



She turned around much confused, and when her old 

 eyes once more guided her to where the lover of her 

 youthful days sat she said : 



"Leave ye, Asa? Leave ye? No, no. I'll never 

 leave you while I live." 



How they cackled and laughed over this tiny inci- 

 dent, it would have done your heart good to see, be- 

 cause she admitted that she was real " skart " when she 

 missed him. 



A man sitting behind us evinced a strong desire to 

 be sociable. He was returning to his home in Missouri 

 after having made his first visit to Philadelphia. He 

 was a merchant out there, and had been for thirty-four 

 years accustomed to visit New York twice a year to 

 buy goods. He had recently heard about the " stop- 

 over privilege " at Philadelphia, so he bought a ticket 

 over the " Pennsy," which gave him the right to stop 

 off at the Quaker City for ten days. He first went to 



