ughed, first to one and then to the
other, "if I ever blow loose your tin brass goat and if I ever blow
loose your tin brass goose, it will be when I am sorry for you because
you are up against hard luck and there is somebody's funeral."

So time passed on and the two skyscrapers stood with their feet among
the policemen and the taxicabs, the people buying and selling,--the
customers with parcels, packages and bundles--while away high on their
roofs stood the goat and the goose looking out on silver blue lakes
like blue porcelain breakfast plates and silver snakes of rivers
winding in the morning sun.

So time passed on and the Northwest Wind kept coming, telling the news
and making promises.

So time passed on. And the two skyscrapers decided to have a child.

And they decided when their child came it should be a _free_ child.

"It must be a free child," they said to each other. "It must not be a
child standing still all its life on a street corner. Yes, if we have
a child she must be free to run across the prairie, to the mountains,
to the sea. Yes, it must be a free child."

So time passed on. Their child came. It was a railroad train, the
Golden Spike Limited, the fastest long distance train in the Rootabaga
Country. It ran across the prairie, to the mountains, to the sea.

They were glad, the two skyscrapers were, glad to have a free child
running away from the big city, far away to the mountains, far away to
the sea, running as far as the farthest mountains and sea coasts
touched by the Northwest Wind.

They were glad their child was useful, the two skyscrapers were, glad
their child was carrying a thousand people a thousand miles a day, so
when people spoke of the Golden Spike Limited, they spoke of it as a
strong, lovely child.

Then time passed on. There came a day when the newsies yelled as
though they were crazy. "Yah yah, blah blah, yoh yoh," was what it
sounded like to the two skyscrapers who never bothered much about what
the newsies were yelling.

"Yah yah, blah blah, yoh yoh," was the cry of the newsies that came up
again to the tops of the skyscrapers.

At last the yelling of the newsies came so strong the skyscrapers
listened and heard the newsies yammering, "All about the great train
wreck! All about the Golden Spike disaster! Many lives lost! Many
lives lost!"

And the Northwest Wind came howling a slow sad song. And late that
afternoon a crowd of policemen, taxicab drivers, newsies an