Chapter 2

CHAPTER II: A FORWARD MOVEMENT.

As travellers like to give their own impressions of a journey,
though every inch of the way may have been described a half a
dozen times before, I add some of the notes made by the way,
hoping that they will amuse the reader, and convince the
skeptical that such a being as Nurse Periwinkle does exist, that
she really did go to Washington, and that these Sketches are not
romance.

New York Train--Seven P.M.--Spinning along to take the boat at New
London. Very comfortable; much gingerbread, and Mrs. C.'s fine
pear, which deserves honorable mention, because my first
loneliness was comforted by it, and pleasant recollections of
both kindly sender and bearer. Look much at Dr. H.'s paper of
directions--put my tickets in every conceivable place, that they
may be get-at-able, and finish by losing them entirely. Suffer
agonies till a compassionate neighbor pokes them out of a crack
with his pen-knife. Put them in the inmost corner of my purse,
that in the deepest recesses of my pocket, pile a collection of
miscellaneous articles atop, and pin up the whole.
Just get composed, feeling that I've done my best to keep them
safely, when the Conductor appears, and I'm forced to rout them
all out again, exposing my precautions, and getting into a
flutter at keeping the man waiting. Finally, fasten them on the
seat before me, and keep one eye steadily upon the yellow
torments, till I forget all about them, in chat with the
gentleman who shares my seat. Having heard complaints of the
absurd way in which American women become images of petrified
propriety, if addressed by strangers, when traveling alone, the
inborn perversity of my nature causes me to assume an entirely
opposite style of deportment; and, finding my companion hails
from Little Athens, is acquainted with several of my three
hundred and sixty-five cousins, and in every way a respectable
and respectful member of society, I put my bashfulness in my
pocket, and plunge into a long conversation on the war, the
weather, music, Carlyle, skating, genius, hoops, and the
immortality of the soul.

Ten P.M.--Very sleepy. Nothing to be seen outside, but darkness
made visible; nothing inside but every variety of bunch into
which the human form can be twisted, rolled, or "massed," as Miss
Prescott says of her jewels. Every man's legs sprawl drowsily,
every woman's head (but mine,) nods, till it finally settles on
somebody's shoulder, a new proof of the truth of the everlasting
oak and vine simile; children fret; lovers whisper; old folks
snore, and somebody privately imbibes brandy, when the lamps go
out. The penetrating perfume rouses the multitude, causing some
to start up, like war horses at