takes up the space between Pineville and Los
Angeles. Of course they saw some of it from the train, but that isn't
like getting off and _staying_. Is it, Bob?"

"I suppose not," agreed Bob absently. "Betty Gordon," he added with a
change of tone, "is that coffee you're drinking?"

Betty nodded guiltily.

"When I'm traveling," she explained in her defense, "I don't see why
I can't drink coffee for breakfast. And when I'm visiting--that's the
only two times I take it, Bob."

Bob had been minded to read her a lecture on the evils of coffee
drinking for young people, but his gaze wandered again to the table
behind Betty, and his scientific protest remained unspoken.

"For goodness sake, Bob," complained Betty, "what can you be staring
at?"

"Don't turn around," cautioned Bob in a low tone. "When we go back to
our car I'll tell you all about it."

Bob gave his attention more to his breakfast after this, and seemed
anxious to keep Betty from asking any more questions. He noticed a
package of flat envelopes lying under her purse and asked if she had
letters she wished mailed.

"Those aren't letters," answered Betty, taking them out and spreading
them on the cloth for him to see. "They're flower seeds, Bob. Hardy
flowers."

"You haven't planned your garden yet, have you?" cried the astonished
boy. "When you haven't the first idea of the kind of place you're
going to live in? Your uncle wrote, you know, that living in Flame
City was so simplified people didn't take time to look around for
rooms or a house--they took whatever they could get, sure that that
was all there was. How do you know you'll have a place to plant a
garden?"

Betty buttered another roll.

"I'm not planning for a garden," she said mildly. "You're going to
help me plant these seeds, and we're going to do it right after
breakfast--just as soon as we can get out on the observation
platform."

Bob stared in bewilderment.

"I read a story once," said Betty with seeming irrelevance. "It was
about some woman who traveled through a barren country, mile after
mile. She was on an accommodation train, too, or perhaps it was
before they had good railroad service. And every so often her
fellow-passengers saw that she threw something out of the window.
They couldn't see what it was, and she never told them. But the next
year, when some of these same passengers made that trip again, the
train rolled through acres and acres of the most gorgeous red
poppie