The train started again, all the other passengers watching the queer children who were making such a confusion.

“Oh, see the cow!” cried a tall boy.  “It’s the last cow you’ll see for a year, fellows, so take a good look at her,” he added as the train passed along a field.

“No more good times for a long while,” sighed a boy who had a seat near Freddie and Flossie.  “I wish I could live in the country always.”

Flossie and Freddie looked at him.  His clothes were patched here and there, but they were clean.  And his face and hands were clean, which could not be said of all the other children, though some of them showed that they had tried to make themselves neat.

“The country is the best place,” he said, and he looked at the two smaller Bobbsey twins as though he would like to speak to them.  “I’m going to be a farmer when I grow up,” he went on, after a pause.

“He—­he’s a nice boy,” whispered Flossie to her brother.  “I’m going to speak to him.  We can talk about the country.”

“Wait a minute,” advised Freddie.  “Maybe mother wouldn’t want us to talk to strangers.”

Flossie looked back to where her father and mother were sitting.  Mrs. Bobbsey was speaking to one of the ladies who had come in the car with the noisy children.

“Are you taking part of an orphan asylum on an outing?” Flossie heard her mother ask.

“No.  These are some ‘fresh air’ children.  They have been out in the country for two weeks, and now we are taking them home.  Poor things!  I wish we could have kept them longer out in the green fields and woods, but there are others waiting for their chance to go.

“You see,” she went on, and Flossie and Freddie listened carefully, “some kind people give us money so that the poor children of the city may have a little time in the country during the hot weather.  We board them out at different farmers’ houses.  This company of children has been on two different farms near Branchville, where we just got on the train.  Some of the little ones are from Sanderville.”  This was a large city not far from Lakeport, a smaller city where the Bobbsey twins lived.  “Others are from Lakeport,” went on the lady, speaking to Mrs. Bobbsey.

“Indeed!” exclaimed Freddie’s mother.  “I did not know there was a fresh air society in our city.”

“It has only just been formed,” said the lady, who was a Miss Carter.  “We haven’t much money left, I’m sorry to say.”

“Then you must let me give you some,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “And I will get some friends of mine to give money also.  Our own children enjoy it so much in the country that I want to see others have a good time, too.”

Then he and Mrs. Bobbsey began to talk about ways of helping poor children, and Flossie and Freddie did not listen any more.  Besides, just then the train was passing along a field in which were many horses, some of which raced alongside the cars, and that interested the twins.