which
had suddenly seemed to turn to ice. "My heart is going bump-bump-bump
like a scared wild rabbit's; but I keep saying over and over to myself
what the python said. Don't you remember in Kaa's hunting? 'A brave
heart and a courteous tongue, said he, they shall carry thee far through
the jungle, manling.' It can't be such a very big jungle that I'm going
into, and godmother will meet me in a few hours. Don't forget me, Davy,
while I'm gone."

She stooped to give the little fellow a hug and a kiss on each dimpled
cheek, for the train had stopped, and Mr. Appleton was waiting to shake
hands and lift her up the steps. Betty stumbled into the first vacant
seat she saw, and sat up primly, afraid to glance behind her. In her
lap, tightly clasped by both hands, she held a little old-fashioned
basket of brown willow. It had two handles and a lid with double flaps.
She carried it because she had no travelling-bag. Her lunch was in that,
her pass, five nickels, and the Red Ridinghood handkerchief.

"You can let that be a sort of warning to you," said Mrs. Appleton, at
parting, "not to get into conversation with strangers. Red Ridinghood
never would have got into trouble if she hadn't stopped to tell the Wolf
all she knew."

Remembering this warning, Betty sat up very straight at first, and held
the basket handles in such a tight grasp that her fingers ached. But
after the conductor had looked at her pass and smiled kindly into the
appealing little face under the white sunbonnet, she felt more at ease
and began to look shyly about her.

Somebody's grandmother was in the seat in front of her, such a fat,
comfortable-looking old lady, that Betty felt sure she could not be a
Wolf in disguise, and watched her with neighbourly interest. She fell to
wondering about her, where she lived and where she was going, and what
she had in her many bags, boxes, shawl-straps, and satchels.

Things were not half so strange as she had expected them to be. The
corn-fields and tobacco-fields and apple-orchards whizzing past the
windows were exactly like the ones she had left at home. More than once
a meadow full of daisies, gleaming on her sight like drifts of summer
snow, made her think of the lower pasture at home, where she had waded
through them the day before, waist-deep.

Even the people who came on the cars at the stations along the way
looked like the people she saw at church every week, and Betty soon
began to feel very much at home