As they drove gaily along Steve heard a sudden rumbling which suggested thunder, the children cried, "The train, the train," and stopping the mules quickly the big brother who was driving jumped down, while three of the children sprang out with a bound and all grasped the bridles at their heads. It was done so quickly there wasn't time to ask a question and then a monster came tearing, puffing, hissing past them. Steve's eyes almost started from their sockets and when it was past he sank back limp and quivering. "Why, chile, didn't ye nuver see no railroad trains afore?" said the good mother. Steve managed to say, "No," and then the children told him all the astonishing things about railroads. To his mingled joy and terror another came along from the opposite direction when they had driven on about a mile further, and this time it came more slowly, making a full stop near them. "Whut air they a-doin' that for?" asked Steve, and when it was explained that they had stopped for fuel or water, there being no station near, a quivering light broke over his face, and remembering his watch as his mind tried to grasp new sources of motion, he said: "They're jes' a-stoppin' to wind hit up, then." Very soon after this they came to a cabin by the roadside and all the family within poured out to see the strangers. "Won't you light and hitch?" drawled the man of the house, but the boy driver refused, saying they wanted "to git to their kin afore night." He suggested to Steve, however, that if he wanted to go to the city he had better stop there, for they were going further from any station than he would be there. The folks of the cabin were hearty in their invitation to the boy when they had heard his story, even the fact of his probable helplessness for a while not marring the beauty of their royal hospitality. So Steve was carefully lifted out and helped in among new friends. The little cabin was full to overflowing with boys and girls, one girl of fifteen fondling her baby as she would a big doll, in ignorant, unlawful, and one perhaps should say innocent motherhood. She, a waif herself, had come along needing shelter and they had taken her in.