“I’ll think about the matter,” said
Freddie Firefly. And then he added somewhat doubtfully:
“It’s a long way to the railroad.”
“Pooh!” Mrs. Ladybug exclaimed. “Old
Mr. Crow often visits it. And if he can fly that
far, at his age, a youngster like you ought not to
mind the trip.”
“Perhaps you know best,” Freddie Firefly
told Mrs. Ladybug at last. “I’ll
take your advice just this once, and I’ll see
how I like the work. But there’s another
question I’d like to ask you: What will
the trains do after they stop?”
While laughing over Freddie’s question Mrs.
Ladybug shook so hard that she unravelled sixteen
rows of her knitting before she could stop.
“Bless you!” she cried, as soon as she
could speak. “I don’t know what the
trains will do. That’s their affair—not
yours nor mine. Everybody’s aware that
trains are made for two purposes—to start
and to stop. But I never should think of being
so rude as to ask them why, or what, or
when, or where.”
So Freddie Firefly thanked Mrs. Ladybug most politely.
He was sure, now, that she was one of the wisest persons
in the whole valley. No doubt, he thought, she
knew almost as much as old Mr. Crow, or even Solomon
Owl. And he wished he knew half what she did.
“I’ll start for the railroad track at
once,” Freddie told Mrs. Ladybug. And waving
his cap at her, while she waved her knitting at him,
he set forth towards the village, the lights of which
twinkled dimly in the distance.
WORK ON THE RAILROAD
Freddie Firefly did not intend to go into the village
itself. He expected to travel only as far as
the railroad tracks, where they curved around a bend
in the river before stretching straight away towards
the town.
Though he spent a much longer time in making the journey
than old Mr. Crow ever took, Freddie at last reached
the railroad, where he promptly sat himself down between
the rails to wait for a train. And there Freddie
Firefly stayed all alone, in the dark, with nothing
to keep from feeling forlorn except the croaking of
a band of noisy frogs in a pool near-by.
After a while Freddie began to grow so weary of his
new task that he wished he had never taken Mrs. Ladybug’s
advice.
“I don’t believe I like working,”
he said with a sigh, as he thought of the good time
his family was having at that very moment, dancing
in Farmer Green’s meadow.
And then all at once he heard a faint whistle, far
off down the valley. And a little later a low
rumble caught his ear—a rumble which grew
louder and louder until at last it turned into a roar,
just as a stream of light shot around the curve in
the track ahead of him, which followed the bend of
the river.
Freddie Firefly was startled. He couldn’t
think what made that long lane of light. And
he was about to jump into the bushes and hide when
he saw all at once that it was exactly what he had
been waiting for.
