"I expect you're all hungry, on account of the delay. Have you anything to eat out at your place?" he called to Sandy.
"Yep. Ma's been bakin' an' cookin' for th' last week!" was the comforting answer. "We're all ready for you. I'm going to take you over in this rig, and I've got another wagon for your trunks and stuff. Have a good journey?"
"Good! Bah! A smash-up!" growled Mr. Sneed. "But we might have expected it—starting out on track thirteen."
"Yah! But ve are all right now, alretty yet!" laughed Mr. Switzer.
Ruth, Alice and the others looked about them with interest. It was a typical country landscape—a little valley nestling amid the green hills.
"Oh, I know I'm going to like it here," murmured Ruth. "It is so restful!"
"Restful! Yes! I should say it was!" exclaimed Pearl Pennington, as she bent a stick of chewing gum, preparatory to enjoying it. "I know what I'll do, all right!"
"What, dear?" asked her friend Laura Dixon, with lazy interest. "What'll you do?"
"I'll be going back to little old New York in about a week. This place has got on my nerves already. Ugh! Isn't it quiet!"
It certainly was, after the departure of the train. There was none of the various noises of
