“I wonder if we’ll like London Junction,” she said and her voice sounded small. “We don’t know anyone but Ma and Lois and the family.”

“We’ll know plenty,” boasted their father. “More people to know, have a better time and have more to do with. They’ve got asphalt streets in London Junction, and an opera house, and a baseball park.”

“But it’s so much bigger than Elmville,” said their mother. The children, ever watchful, saw that she had taken out her handkerchief. “Of course, I want to be with my own folks, but think of all the people we’re leaving. We’ve known them all our lives. Dr. Bird—”

“Dr. Bird won’t have anybody to hold string when he wraps bundles,” said Marcia. “Nobody.”

Lena was holding Florrie on her lap, squeezing her so tight that now she roared again. The mighty roar that came from this Humpty-Dumpty baby made their father laugh, so they all laughed. Papa leaned over and kissed their mother and for some reason this made the girls laugh all the louder.

“Here,” said their father, and handed their mother the reins. “By George, you handle a horse better than any man. Better than me, even.”

“Oh no, Harry, not better than you!” their mother protested, quite shocked. “Nobody is as good with a horse as you, Harry—nobody.”

Nobody could do anything as well as Harry and that was the truth. The children knew it, their mother knew it, and naturally Harry knew it.

“Well, I like horses,” admitted Harry. “And they like me.

That’s all.”

The next village was Oakville, the county seat, and here they stopped to say hello to papa’s father, Grandpa Willard, at the Soldiers’ Home. The old soldiers sat on benches around the grounds in wheelchairs, either talking to each other or reading, just waiting for gongs to summon them to meals, chapel, or bed. Grandpa Willard was all dressed up in his uniform with the new cork leg his children had given him, and was sitting on a bench busily whittling a whistle out of a stick.

“I been expecting you folks to stop in the last couple weeks,” he said. “I made a whistle for each of the kids.”

“Getting lonesome for us?” asked Mama.

Grandpa thoughtfully shifted his tobacco to the other cheek, where it made a fascinating egglike protuberance.

“No time to get lonesome here,” he said. “Up early and reading a book or sitting out here figuring, or walking around spotting birds. Seen a couple of partridge back by the creek yesterday. Had a pest of starlings till they let us shoot some. No sirree, they’s always plenty to take up your mind without getting lonesome for your folks.”

Papa gave him some tobacco, and then mother gave him a new white handkerchief with his initials, R. J. W., which pleased him so much he folded it up carefully in its tissue paper, declaring that it was too fine to use and would have to be put away with his “personal belongings.” He called to one of the attendants passing by, to introduce them all proudly, and asked that the event of his son’s family calling be written up in an item in the Home Weekly.