platform and Wig started singing:

"Oh, there was the Duke of Yorkshire,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up the hill,
And he marched them down again.
And when they're up, they're up,
And when they're down, they're down;
And when they're only half way up,
They're neither up nor down."

Pretty soon, while we were sitting there, we all started to make up
words to the same tune, and after a while this is what we got to
singing:

"Oh, there was young Pee-wee Harris (Cook),
That ran a movie show.
He loosed the brake of a station-car,
To see where he would go.
And when he'd roll, he'd roll,
And when he'd stop, he'd stop.
And he stopped right in the middle of the road,
Where there wasn't any traffic cop."

"Suppose an automobile should come along," Connie said.

"That's a very good idea," I told him; "suppose one should."

Westy was sitting up on the top step and he said, "Oh, Sister Anne,
Sister Anne, I think I can see one scooting along through the woods, the
other side of the lake."

"Let it scoot," I said; "the only way it can get past here is to do a
couple of double flops like Pee-wee's omelet."

"It can't get around on account of the woods," Pee-wee said.

"Right the first time, as usual," I told him. "_Over the top_ is the
only way. I hope it's a high-grade car, because a low-grade car could
never get over such a high place."

"We had a narrow escape," Wig said

"If the machine doesn't stop, we'll stop it," Connie put in.

"Sure," I said, "we have a good argument."

"Brewster's Centre is getting to be a famous name," Westy said.

Connie said, "Sure, we're getting to be known in all the highways and
byways--especially the highways. What do you say we give a movie show
right here?"

"Vetoed," I told him.

We sat on the platform steps talking and jollying each other; what did
we care? Be it ever so much in the wrong place, there's no place like
home. Maybe you've read stories about boys running away from home for
adventures, but our home was a good sport, it went with us. It had a
good name, too, Brewster's Centre. Because it was right plunk in the
center of the road.

Pretty soon Westy shouted, "Here comes the car. See it? You can see it
right through the trees. It's green and red."

"It'll be black and blue if it tries to get past here," Wig said.

It was a great big tourin