for two hours on a narrow platform, which the sun had scorched till it
smelt of heat. The oldest boy--the little lover--held the youngest child,
and talked to her, while the tired mother closed her eyes and rested. Now
and then he looked over at her, and then back at the baby; and at last he
said confidentially to me (for we had become fast friends by this time),
"Isn't it funny, to think that I was ever so small as this baby? And papa
says that then mamma was almost a little girl herself."

The two other children were toiling up and down the banks of the
railroad-track, picking ox-eye daisies, buttercups, and sorrel. They
worked like beavers, and soon the bunches were almost too big for their
little hands. Then they came running to give them to their mother. "Oh
dear," thought I, "how that poor, tired woman will hate to open her eyes!
and she never can take those great bunches of common, fading flowers, in
addition to all her bundles and bags." I was mistaken.

"Oh, thank you, my darlings! How kind you were! Poor, hot, tired little
flowers, how thirsty they look! If they will only try and keep alive till
we get home, we will make them very happy in some water; won't we? And you
shall put one bunch by papa's plate, and one by mine."

Sweet and happy, the weary and flushed little children stood looking up in
her face while she talked, their hearts thrilling with compassion for the
drooping flowers and with delight in the giving of their gift. Then she
took great trouble to get a string and tie up the flowers, and then the
train came, and we were whirling along again. Soon it grew dark, and
little Annie's head nodded. Then I heard the mother say to the oldest boy,
"Dear, are you too tired to let little Annie put her head on your shoulder
and take a nap? We shall get her home in much better case to see papa if
we can manage to give her a little sleep." How many boys of twelve hear