e street, a fine, new,
long stick at his side, like a saber. He rounded the block, and waited
back of the Cowles carriage-shed, doing sentry-go and planning the
number of parrots and pieces of eight he would bring back from San
Francisco. _Then_ his father and mother would be sorry they'd talked
about him in their Norwegian!

"Carl!" Gertie was running around the corner of the carriage-shed.
"Oh, Carl, I had to come out and see you again, but I can't go
seek-our-fortunes with you, 'cause they've got the piano moved in now
and I got to practise, else I'll grow up just an ignorant common
person, and, besides, there's going to be tea-biscuits and honey for
supper. I saw the honey."

He smartly swung his saber to his shoulder, ordering, "Come on!"

Gertie edged forward, perplexedly sucking a finger-joint, and followed
him along Lake Street toward open country. They took to the Minnesota
& Dakota railroad track, a natural footpath in a land where the trains
were few and not fast, as was the condition of the single-tracked M. &
D. of 1893. In a worried manner Carl inquired whether San Francisco
was northwest or southeast--the directions in which ran all
self-respecting railroads. Gertie blandly declared that it lay to the
northwest; and northwest they started--toward the swamps and the first
forests of the Big Woods.

He had wonderlands to show her along the track. To him every detail
was of scientific importance. He knew intimately the topography of the
fields beside the track; in which corner of Tubbs's pasture, between
the track and the lake, the scraggly wild clover grew, and down what
part of the gravel-bank it was most exciting to roll. As far along the
track as the Arch, each railroad tie (or sleeper) had for him a
personality: the fat, white tie, which oozed at the end into an
awkward knob, he had always hated because it resembled a flattened
grub; a new tamarack tie with a sliver of fresh bark still on it,
recently put in by the section gang, was an entertaining stranger; and
he particularly introduced Gertie to his favorite, a wine-colored tie
which always smiled.

Gertie, though _noblesse oblige_ compelled her to be gracious to the
imprisoned ties writhing under the steel rails, did not really show
much enthusiasm till he led her to the justly celebrated Arch. Even
then she boasted of Minnehaha Falls and Fort Snelling and Lake
Calhoun; but, upon his grieved solicitation, declared that, after all,
the Twin Ci