Blossom. "You can easily wait till we get to Brookside, dear."

"Let him go, let him go," advised the conductor cheerily. "It will
kind of break up the monotony of the trip, ma'am. These little folks
are going to get pretty tired before they get to Alawana."

So Twaddles marched off importantly with the conductor to find the
young, good-natured brakesman, and the three little Blossoms rather
wished they could go, too.

"What happens when we get to Alawana, Mother?" asked Bobby. "Do we
change cars?"

"No, dear, we take the boat," explained Mother Blossom. "If the train
is on time we have an hour to wait, which will allow us to have lunch;
then we take a steamer that takes us up Lake Tobago to Little Havre.
There we take a stage, or a wagon, or whatever they have to meet the
boat, and ride to Four Crossways; and there Aunt Polly meets us and
drives us over to Brookside."

"Here comes Twaddles," announced Dot. "Did you find the kiddie car?"
she asked.

"Yes, it's there," reported Twaddles, squeezing in past Meg, and
climbing into his place beside his twin. "There's lots of trunks and
things there, too."

During the long stretches when the train hummed steadily along and
there was nothing to be seen from the car windows but miles and miles
of green fields and woods with here and there a house, the children
played a game Mother Blossom had known when she was a little girl.

"My ship is loaded with apples," Bobby would say.

"My ship is loaded with apricots," Meg would declare.

Dot usually had to think a minute.

"My ship is loaded with--with ashes," she might announce finally.

"My ship is loaded with at;" this from Twaddles.

"Oh, Twaddles!" Bobby would scold. "You can't load a ship with 'at.'
That isn't anything."

"'Tis, too," maintained Twaddles stubbornly. "It begins with 'a,'
doesn't it? And it's a word. So there."

If Twaddles had his way and was excused from thinking up another word,
it would be Mother Blossom's turn.

"My ship is loaded with asters," she might say, smiling.

When no one could think of another word that began with A, they would
go on to B. This game amused the children for many minutes at a time.
They had just started on words beginning with C when the train reached
Alawana.

"I'm hungry," declared Meg, when they all stood together on the
platform and the train that had brought them from Oak Hill was nothing
but a black speck in the distance. "We had breakfast an awful long