As she walked along, holding her large, green umbrella over her head, she glanced now, and then from beneath it at the houses she passed. She caught sight of the four Bobbsey twins at the window of their home, and halted a minute, gazing intently at them.
“Oh, do you s’pose she’s coming here?” gasped Nan.
“No, I think not,” replied Mrs. Bobbsey. Then the old woman walked slowly on, still peering curiously at the house.
“Isn’t she odd?” murmured Nan to Bert. “I wonder what she has in that basket, and what she is looking for.”
“Maybe she sells things,” suggested Bert. “Well, I know what I’m going to do if mother won’t let me go out and play boat.” He had asked to be allowed to do this, but Mrs. Bobbsey had said no.
“I’m going to make an elevated railroad,” declared Bert.
“Oh, can you?” cried Freddie. “And may I help?”
Nan remained at the window, looking at the queer old woman as she vanished down the street in the mist from the rain. Though Nan did not know it, this same old woman was soon to play a strange part in the lives of the Bobbsey twins.
“How you going to make an elevated railroad?” asked Freddie.
“I’ll show you,” answered Bert. “No, Flossie, you can’t ride on it,” he added, as his smaller sister again made her request. “It’s only the toy railroad put up on some chairs.”
“Oh, that’ll be fun!” cried Freddie. “I’ll help!”
He began dragging chairs away from the dining-room table, while Bert got from the closet, where it was kept, a toy train of cars that ran by electricity on a sectional track. Instead of putting the track together on the floor, as he usually did, Bert had decided to raise it in the air, supporting it on chairs and boards, thus making an elevated railroad.
“Be careful now, children,” warned Mrs. Bobbsey, when she saw what they were doing. “Don’t get hurt.”
Bert had taken Dinah’s two ironing boards, the large one and the small one, and with some other boards and boxes from the cellar and by the use of chairs, had made a place to put together his tracks.
“You can see ’em a lot better when they’re up high this way,” said Freddie, as the track was nearly completed.
“I wish I could ride on it. I like to ride on elevated railroads,” sighed Flossie. “I rided on one when I was in New York once,” she added.