"There seems to be some kind of a ruckus," Mr. Appel remarked as he stood up and leaned out the window.
Before he had time to report, however, two side wheels went over the edge of the station platform, tipping the coach to an angle which sent all the passengers on the upper side into the laps of those on the lower.
Aunt Lizzie pitched headlong and with such force that when she struck Mr. Stott on the mouth with her onyx apple she cut his lip.
"You'll kill somebody with that yet!" Mr. Stott glared at the keepsake.
Aunt Lizzie scrambled back into her seat and looked composedly at the drop of blood he offered in evidence, on the corner of his handkerchief.
Mr. Appel, who undoubtedly would have gone on through the window when the coach lurched had it not been for his wife's presence of mind in clutching him by the coat, demanded in an angry voice--instead of showing the gratitude she had reason to expect: "Whatch you doin'? Tearin' the clothes off'n m'back? Wisht you'd leave me be!"
It had been years since Mr. Appel had spoken to his wife like that. Mrs. Appel opened her reticule, took out a handkerchief and held it to her eyes.
In the meantime the side wheels had dropped off the station platform and the coach had righted itself, but in spite of all that Pinkey and Wallie could do the leaders swung sharply to the left and dragged the wheel horses after them down the railroad track.
When the wheels struck the ties, Miss Mattie Gaskett bounded into the air as if she had been sitting upon a steel coil that had suddenly been released. She was wearing a tall-crowned hat of a style that had not been in vogue for some years and as she struck the roof it crackled and went shut like an accordeon, so that it was of an altogether different shape when she dropped back to the seat.
"Oh, my!" she exclaimed, blinking in a dazed fashion as she felt of her hat.
Old Mr. Penrose, who had elongated his naturally long neck preparatory to looking out the window, also struck the roof and with such force that his neck was bent like the elbow in a stove-pipe when he came down. He said such a bad word that Aunt Lizzie Philbrick exclaimed: "Oh, how dread-ful!" and asked him to remember where he was.
Mr. Penrose replied that he did not care where he was--that if her neck had been driven into her shoulders a foot she would say something, too.
Mrs. J. Harry Stott and Mr. Budlong, who had bumped heads so hard that the thud was heard, were eyeing each other in an unfriendly fashion as they felt of their foreheads, waiting for the lump.