preciated; and I don't believe people were any more grateful to him
for his steam engine than we are to you right now for this luncheon. You
are the best mother I ever had."

CHAPTER IV

THE STORY OF THE FIRST RAILROAD

The new tire went on with unexpected ease and early afternoon saw the
Tolmans once more bowling along the highway toward Northampton. The
valley of the Connecticut was decked with harvest products as for an
autumnal pageant. Stacks of corn dotted the fields and pyramids of
golden pumpkins and scarlet apples made gay the verandas of the old
homesteads or brightened the doorways of the great red barns flanking
them.

"All that is needed to transform the scene into a giant Hallowe'en
festival is to have a witch whisk by on a broomstick, or a ghost bob up
from behind a tombstone," declared Mrs. Tolman. "Just think! If we had
come by train we would have missed all this beauty."

"I see plainly that you do not appreciate the railroads, my dear,"
returned her husband mischievously. "This is the second time to-day that
you have slandered them. You sound like the early American traveler who
asserted that it was ridiculous to build railroads which did very
uncomfortably in two days what could be done delightfully by coach in
eight or ten."

"Why, I should have thought people who had never heard of motor-cars
would have welcomed the quicker transportation the railroads offered,"
was Mrs. Tolman's reply.

"One would have thought so," answered Mr. Tolman. "Still, when we recall
how primitive the first railroads were, the prejudice against them is
not to be wondered at."

"How did they differ from those we have now, Dad?" Doris asked.

"In almost every way," answered her father, with a smile. "You see at
the time Stephenson invented his steam locomotive nothing was known of
this novel method of travel. As I told you, persons were accustomed to
make journeys either by coach or canal. Then the steam engine was
invented and immediately the notion that this power might be applied to
transportation took possession of the minds of people in different parts
of England. As a result, first one and then another made a crude
locomotive and tried it out without scruple on the public highway, where
it not only frightened horses but terrified the passers-by. Many an
amusing story is told of the adventures of these amateur locomotives. A
machinist named Murdock, who was one of James Watt's assistants, built a
sor