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Updated: June 22, 2025
She was glad that Bess Harley was too sleepy to probe any deeper into the matter. Nan did not forget Inez, the flower-girl, nor the fact that the runaways Sallie Morton and Celia Snubbins might still be traced through Mother Beasley's cheap lodging house. Both Walter and Grace Mason had been interested, as well as amused, in the chum's account of their first adventure in Chicago.
"It was that there 'Rural Beauty' done it," Mr. Morton broke in peevishly. "Wish't I'd never let them film people camp up there on my paster lot and take them picters on my farm. Sallie was jest carried away with it. She acted in that five-reel film, 'A Rural Beauty. And I must say she looked as purty as a peach in it." "That's what they've run away for, I bet," broke in Si Snubbins.
Carter had picked up the cans and had gone forward to have the milk thawed out at the boiler fire. Some of the brakemen had cleared away the snow by now and there was an open passage to the outside world. The keen kind blew in, and the pale, wintry sunshine lighted the space between the baggage cars. Mr. Snubbins grinned in his friendly way at the two girls.
They've jest about bewitched my gal and Sallie Morton." "Goodness!" gasped Nan. "There aren't moving picture shows away out here in the country, are there?" "Oncet a week at the Corner," said Mr. Snubbins. "An' we all go. But that ain't so much what's made Celia and Sallie so crazy. Ye see, las' fall was a comp'ny makin' picters right up here in Peleg's west parster.
I was jest goin' across to Peleg Morton's haouse with this yere milk, when I I sorter dropped in," and Farmer Snubbins went off into a fit of laughter at his own joke. Mr. Si Snubbins was a character, and he plainly was very much pleased with himself. His little, sharp eyes apprehended the situation quickly. "I vow to Maria!" repeated the farmer. "Ye air all snowed up here, ain't ye?
"Surely the train won't steam off and leave us," and she broke into a laugh. "Oh, come on, Miss Fussbudget! Don't be afraid. I've been asking permission a dozen times a day for more than three months. I'm glad to do something 'off my own bat, as my brother Billy says. Come on, Nan." So Nan went. They found Mr. Si Snubbins, "the angel with chin whiskers," ready to depart.
"Fresh milk will be a whole lot better for these kiddies we've got in the smoker than condensed milk. Just the same," he added, "I shall hold on to Bulson's shipment." "What'll I take for this milk, mister?" repeated Snubbins, cautiously. "Wall, I dunno. I'spect the price has gone up some, because o' the roads being blocked." "That will do that will do," Mr. Carter hastened to say.
There were hard boiled eggs, and smoked beef and cookies, pies and cakes. In fact, the good woman stripped her pantry for the needy people in the stalled train. Her husband got into his outer garments and helped Si Snubbins carry the baskets across the snow. Mrs. Morton's last words to the girls were: "Do, do, my dears, try to find my girl and Celia when you go to Chicago."
"My! it must be quite exciting to work for the pictures," said romantic Bess. "Sure it is," chuckled the farmer. "One feller fell off a hoss while they was up here an' broke his collarbone; an' one of the gals tried ter milk our old Sukey from the wrong side, an' Sukey nigh kicked her through the side of the shed," and Mr. Snubbins indulged in another fit of laughter over this bit of comedy.
Sallie was a pretty girl, despite the fault her father had pointed out that she was long-limbed. Nan and Bess knew Celia Snubbins because she did look like her father. The two girls had been used in the comedy scene of "A Rural Beauty" as contrasts to the leading lady in the play, who was made up most strikingly as the beautiful milkmaid who captured the honest young farmer in the end.
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