The Railway Children

‘Oh, Peter!’ cried Bobbie, quite overcome by this munificence, ‘not your own dear little engine that you’re so fond of?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Peter, very promptly, ‘not the engine. Only the sweets.’

Bobbie couldn’t help her face changing a little – not so much because she was disappointed at not getting the engine, as because she had thought it so very noble of Peter, and now she felt she had been silly to think it. Also she felt she must have seemed greedy to expect the engine as well as the sweets. So her face changed. Peter saw it. He hesitated a minute; then his face changed, too, and he said: ‘I mean not all the engine. I’ll let you go halves if you like.’

‘You’re a brick,’ cried Bobbie; ‘it’s a splendid present.’ She said no more aloud, but to herself she said:

‘That was awfully decent of Peter because I know he didn’t mean to. Well, the broken half shall be my half of the engine, and I’ll get it mended and give it back to Peter for his birthday.’ – ‘Yes, Mother dear, I should like to cut the cake,’ she added, and tea began.

It was a delightful birthday. After tea Mother played games with them – any game they liked – and of course their first choice was blindman’s-buff, in the course of which Bobbie’s forget-me-not wreath twisted itself crookedly over one of her ears and stayed there. Then, when it was near bed-time and time to calm down, Mother had a lovely new story to read to them.

‘You won’t sit up late working, will you, Mother?’ Bobbie asked as they said good-night.

And Mother said no, she wouldn’t – she would only just write to Father and then go to bed.

But when Bobbie crept down later to bring up her presents – for she felt she really could not be separated from them all night – Mother was not writing, but leaning her head on her arms and her arms on the table. I think it was rather good of Bobbie to slip quietly away, saying over and over, ‘She doesn’t want me to know she’s unhappy, and I won’t know; I won’t know.’ But it made a sad end to the birthday.

The very next morning Bobbie began to watch her opportunity to get Peter’s engine mended secretly. And the opportunity came the very next afternoon.

Mother went by train to the nearest town to do shopping. When she went there, she always went to the Post-office. Perhaps to post her letters to Father, for she never gave them to the children or Mrs Viney to post, and she never went to the village herself. Peter and Phyllis went with her. Bobbie wanted an excuse not to go, but try as she would she couldn’t think of a good one. And just when she felt that all was lost, her frock caught on a big nail by the kitchen door and there was a great criss-cross tear all along the front of the skirt. I assure you this was really an accident. So the others pitied her and went without her, for there was no time for her to change, because they were rather late already and had to hurry to the station to catch the train.

When they had gone, Bobbie put on her everyday frock, and went down to the railway. She did not go into the station, but she went along the line to the end of the platform where the engine is when the down train is alongside the platform – the place where there are a water tank and a long, limp, leather hose, like an elephant’s trunk. She hid behind a bush on the other side of the railway. She had the toy engine done up in brown paper, and she waited patiently with it under her arm.

Then when the next train came in and stopped, Bobbie went across the metals of the up-line and stood beside the engine. She had never been so close to an engine before. It looked much larger and harder than she had expected, and it made her feel very small indeed, and, somehow, very soft – as if she could very, very easily be hurt rather badly.

‘I know what silk-worms feel like now,’ said Bobbie to herself.

The engine-driver and fireman did not see her. They were leaning out of the other side, telling the Porter a tale about a dog and a leg of mutton.

‘If you please,’ said Roberta – but the engine was blowing off steam and no one heard her.

‘If you please, Mr Engineer,’ she spoke a little louder, but the Engine happened to speak at the same moment, and of course Roberta’s soft little voice hadn’t a chance.

It seemed to her that the only way would be to climb on to the engine and pull at their coats. The step was high, but she got her knee on it, and clambered into the cab; she stumbled and fell on hands and knees on the base of the great heap of coals that led up to the square opening in the tender. The engine was not above the weaknesses of its fellows; it was making a great deal more noise than there was the slightest need for. And just as Roberta fell on the coals, the engine-driver, who had turned without seeing her, started the engine, and when Bobbie had picked herself up, the train was moving – not fast, but much too fast for her to get off.

All sorts of dreadful thoughts came to her all together in one horrible flash. There were such things as express trains which went on, she supposed, for hundreds of miles without stopping. Suppose this should be one of them? How would she get home again? She had no money to pay for the return journey.

‘And I’ve no business here. I’m an engine-burglar – that’s what I am,’ she thought. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if they could lock me up for this.’ And the train was going faster and faster.

There was something in her throat that made it impossible for her to speak. She tried twice. The men had their backs to her. They were doing something to things that looked like taps.

Suddenly she put out her hand and caught hold of the nearest sleeve. The man turned with a start, and he and Roberta stood for a minute looking at each other in silence. Then the silence was broken by them both.

The man said, ‘Here’s a bloomin’ go!’ and Roberta burst into tears.

The other man said he was blooming well blest – or something like it – but though naturally surprised they were not exactly unkind.

‘You’re a naughty little girl, that’s what you are,’ said the fireman, but the engine-driver said:

‘Darling little piece, I call her,’ but they made her sit down on an iron seat in the cab and told her to stop crying and tell them what she meant by it.

She did stop, as soon as she could. One thing that helped her was the thought that Peter would give almost his ears to be in her place – on a real engine – really going. The children had often wondered whether any engine-driver could be found noble enough to take them for a ride on an engine – and now here she was. She dried her eyes and sniffed earnestly.

‘Now, then,’ said the fireman, ‘out with it. What do you mean by it, eh?’

‘Oh, please,’ sniffed Bobbie, and stopped.

‘Try again,’ said the engine-driver, encouragingly.

Bobbie tried again.

‘Please, Mr Engineer,’ she said, ‘I did call out to you from the line, but you didn’t hear me – and I just climbed up to touch you on the arm – quite gently I meant to do it – and then I fell into the coals – and I am so sorry if I frightened you. Oh, don’t be cross – oh, please don’t!’ She sniffed again.

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