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We set it for four people. So I said, "Is company coming to dinner?" Aunty May hugged me and said, "Yes, Billy, but it's a surprise. Don't ask." But I kept guessing, Charlotte and Grace Turner, and Mr. and Mrs. Turner, and everybody I knew in East Penniwell, and Aunty May said, "You're cold. You're cold."
I hadn't been ready for its stopping, and I got so busy getting my things on, and getting my bag in my hand, that I didn't hear the name of it, and I asked Aunty May if it was East Penniwell, and she said, "Oh, no, this is Scrubbsville, New Jersey, and East Penniwell is in Pennsylvania." "Will we get into another train, then?" I asked, and Aunty May laughed and said, "Oh, no, just wait and see."
Aunty Edith got him sent to a place for colored children, where he could have fresh air, and some one to look after him, but he had to go away from East Penniwell. The farmers said he was "dangerous." I was sorry and Aunty May was sorry, too, but it couldn't be helped.
Then I went up to the kitchen door and knocked and nobody came, but I heard a little voice at the kitchen window say, "Hey, boy, what do you want?" I looked and there was a little boy, just about seven or eight, sitting in a chair by the window, and I came up to it, and called to him "I want to know the road to East Penniwell, and I want a drink of water."
Samuel said the East Penniwell fire engine could get up steam and run to a fire, with Sol Achers's old white horse hitched to her, quicker than a New York fire engine could. George and me said it couldn't. He said, "It could, because why? The East Penniwell horse and engine were used to the roads and the New York horses and engine would have to be showed."
Aunty Edith said, "Now I've got to order oil from Tryer and coal from Quick and some thread from Miss Macfarland's notion store," and I said, "Why don't the servants do all that, Aunty Edith?" She laughed and said, "There are no servants for us at East Penniwell, William; we do the work ourselves," Aunty May said, "But it will be fun, Billy.
At first he just shook his head, and then he opened the window, and said, "Hurry up. We got diphtheria here and nobody's allowed to speak to me. That's why the tollhouse is shut up. Ain't you 'fraid?" I said, "I don't know what it is, and I'm awfully hungry and thirsty and I want to know the road to East Penniwell."
The train waited a long time, but at last it moved, and Aunty May put her arm round me and sat me next the window, only it wasn't open, because it was only April and wasn't warm enough yet, and said, "Now we're off to East Penniwell." The train just crawled along, and there was a big canal on the one side.
Well, that made the Crosscup boys mad, and they kept telling all about the East Penniwell engine house, and my! it must be a lovely place, if all they say is true. George he told them then about the New York engine houses, and my! they must be splendid if George really knew. He said he did. He said his mother's cousin washed for three firemen and she'd oughter know.
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