Then Charlie said to his Daddy, “Daddy, what _ex-act-ly_ makes the train go?”
And his Daddy said, “It’s the steam that makes the engine work, and it is the engineer and the fireman who look after the steam and the engine.” Then Charlie said, “What I want to know is _ex-act-ly_ what the fireman and the engineer do when they are making the engine go.”
But what do you think? His Daddy did not know _ex-act-ly_ what they did--he said that he had never ridden on an engine in his life, so how could he know what they did? And Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie did not know either. That was very surprising.
Well, after they had been in the big train for about a whole hour, they came to a station where there were a lot of tracks. This station was called a junction, because there were so many tracks.
Some of the tracks went to the North and some to the South and some to the East and some to the West. The train that Charlie and his Daddy and his Auntie and his Mother were on was going toward the West; but now they wanted to go to the North, so they had to change trains and go on a train that was going toward the _North_.
The train was already waiting on its own track. It was a very little train, it had only two coaches!
Charlie’s Mother and his Auntie and Jane and Topsy got into the train, and they took Bingo with them, because, as it was such a little unimportant train, the conductor said that Bingo could travel in the day coach instead of being tied up in the baggage car, and Bingo was very glad. But Charlie and his Daddy waited on the platform till it was time for the train to start, and they looked at all the interesting things about them.
Then a man came up. He wore overalls and a peaked cap. And--you _never_ can guess who it was? It was the _fireman_ who helped work the engine of the train they were going to take. And what _do_ you think? The fireman knew Charlie’s Daddy! Yes, the fireman came up to them, and said to his Daddy, “Hello, Bob!” Bob was his Daddy’s name that his Mother and his Auntie always called him! And his Daddy said, “Why--Hello, Bill,” and they shook hands.
Charlie was _very_ much surprised that the fireman and his Daddy knew each other, but it was not so very surprising after all. The fireman lived in the village where Charlie’s Daddy had lived when he was a little boy, and where Charlie and his Mother and his Auntie were going to live for a whole month, and his Daddy and the fireman had gone to the same school when they were little boys!