The Railway Children | Page 7

could
imitate a hen that has laid an egg, a bottle of champagne being opened,
and could mew like two cats fighting. The servants never told the
children what the bad news was that the gentlemen had brought to
Father. But they kept hinting that they could tell a great deal if they
chose--and this was not comfortable.
One day when Peter had made a booby trap over the bath-room door,
and it had acted beautifully as Ruth passed through, that red-haired
parlour-maid caught him and boxed his ears.
"You'll come to a bad end," she said furiously, "you nasty little limb,
you! If you don't mend your ways, you'll go where your precious
Father's gone, so I tell you straight!"
Roberta repeated this to her Mother, and next day Ruth was sent away.
Then came the time when Mother came home and went to bed and
stayed there two days and the Doctor came, and the children crept
wretchedly about the house and wondered if the world was coming to
an end.
Mother came down one morning to breakfast, very pale and with lines
on her face that used not to be there. And she smiled, as well as she
could, and said:--
"Now, my pets, everything is settled. We're going to leave this house,
and go and live in the country. Such a ducky dear little white house. I

know you'll love it."
A whirling week of packing followed--not just packing clothes, like
when you go to the seaside, but packing chairs and tables, covering
their tops with sacking and their legs with straw.
All sorts of things were packed that you don't pack when you go to the
seaside. Crockery, blankets, candlesticks, carpets, bedsteads, saucepans,
and even fenders and fire-irons.
The house was like a furniture warehouse. I think the children enjoyed
it very much. Mother was very busy, but not too busy now to talk to
them, and read to them, and even to make a bit of poetry for Phyllis to
cheer her up when she fell down with a screwdriver and ran it into her
hand.
"Aren't you going to pack this, Mother?" Roberta asked, pointing to the
beautiful cabinet inlaid with red turtleshell and brass.
"We can't take everything," said Mother.
"But we seem to be taking all the ugly things," said Roberta.
"We're taking the useful ones," said Mother; "we've got to play at being
Poor for a bit, my chickabiddy."
When all the ugly useful things had been packed up and taken away in
a van by men in green-baize aprons, the two girls and Mother and Aunt
Emma slept in the two spare rooms where the furniture was all pretty.
All their beds had gone. A bed was made up for Peter on the
drawing-room sofa.
"I say, this is larks," he said, wriggling joyously, as Mother tucked him
up. "I do like moving! I wish we moved once a month."
Mother laughed.
"I don't!" she said. "Good night, Peterkin."

As she turned away Roberta saw her face. She never forgot it.
"Oh, Mother," she whispered all to herself as she got into bed, "how
brave you are! How I love you! Fancy being brave enough to laugh
when you're feeling like THAT!"
Next day boxes were filled, and boxes and more boxes; and then late in
the afternoon a cab came to take them to the station.
Aunt Emma saw them off. They felt that THEY were seeing HER off,
and they were glad of it.
"But, oh, those poor little foreign children that she's going to
governess!" whispered Phyllis. "I wouldn't be them for anything!"
At first they enjoyed looking out of the window, but when it grew dusk
they grew sleepier and sleepier, and no one knew how long they had
been in the train when they were roused by Mother's shaking them
gently and saying:--
"Wake up, dears. We're there."
They woke up, cold and melancholy, and stood shivering on the
draughty platform while the baggage was taken out of the train. Then
the engine, puffing and blowing, set to work again, and dragged the
train away. The children watched the tail-lights of the guard's van
disappear into the darkness.
This was the first train the children saw on that railway which was in
time to become so very dear to them. They did not guess then how they
would grow to love the railway, and how soon it would become the
centre of their new life, nor what wonders and changes it would bring
to them. They only shivered and sneezed and hoped the walk to the
new house would not be long. Peter's nose was colder than he ever
remembered it to have been before. Roberta's hat was crooked, and the
elastic seemed tighter than usual.