Jennie, a little boy came and leaned against the door-post and
listened? Mrs. Scott told him to come in and took him on her lap. She
gave him a cup of milk, and after he went away she said he had been sick
with a fever and his folks were very poor. There's a good many of them,
and they live in the third-story back-room."

"Oh, yes, I remember. So that is the boy. Poor little fellow! He looks
as if he needed some country air."

"_Doesn't_ he!" said Marty. "O mamma, don't you think that society Mrs.
Watson belongs to would send him to the country for a week? That would
be better than nothing."

"I fear they cannot, for Mrs. Watson told me the other day that there
are a great many more children who ought to be sent than they have money
to pay for."

"I _wish_ he could go," said Marty.

The boy's pale, wistful face haunted her for a while, but in the
excitement of the journey it faded from her mind.

After the rush and roar of the train how perfectly still it seemed in
the green valley where stood Trout Run Station! How peaceful the
mountains! how pure and sweet the air!

"Mamma," said Marty almost in a whisper, "everything is exactly the same
as ever."

"Mountains don't change much," replied Mrs. Ashford as she seated
herself on one of the trunks and took Freddie on her lap.

"But I mean this funny little station and the tiny river and the old red
tannery over there, and the quietness and everything! And oh, there's
Hiram! He looks just as he did summer before last, and I believe he's
got on the very same straw hat!"

Hiram, Farmer Stokes' hired man, who had come to meet the travellers,
now appeared from the rear of the station, where he had been obliged to
stay by his horses until the train had vanished in the distance. His
sunburnt face wore a broad smile, and though he did not say much, Mrs.
Ashford and Marty knew that in his slow, quiet way he was very glad to
see them. He seemed to be particularly struck by the fact that the
children had grown so much, and when Freddie got off his mother's lap
and ran across the platform, Hiram gazed at him in admiration, also
seeming highly amused.

"I can't believe this tall girl's Marty, and as for the little boy--why,
he was carried in arms the last time _I_ saw him!"

"Two years makes a great difference in children," said Mrs. Ashford.

"That's so," Hiram assented. "Well, I reckon we'd better be moving."

"How I dread the steep hills," said Mrs. Ashford as they w