That was all. But everybody exchanged glances.
'Odd,' thought Mother, again remembering her dreams.
Jimbo upset the milk-jug. Usually there would have been a rumpus over this. To-day it seemed like something happening far away—something that had not really happened at all.
'We must all be ready then,' said Rogers, noticing vaguely that
Mother's sleeve had smeared the butter as she mopped up the mess.
Daddy was making a note on his shirt sleeve:—
The Sweep, the Laugher and the Tramp,
The running man who lights the lamp,
The Woman of the Haystack, too,
The Gardener and Man of Dust
Are passengers because they must
Follow the Guard with eyes of blue.
Over the forests and into the Cave
That is the way we must all behave—-
'Please, Daddy, will you move? It's dripping on to your boot.'
They all looked down; the milk had splashed from the cloth and fallen upon the toe of his big mountain boots. It made a pretty, white star. Riquette was daintily lapping it up with her long pink Tongue. Ray by ray the star set in her mysterious interior.
'Riquette must come too,' said Rogers gravely. 'She's full of white starlight now.'
And Jimbo left his chair and went seriously over to the book-shelf above Mother's sofa-bed to arrange the signals. For between the tightly-wedged books he had inserted all the available paper-knives and book-markers he could find to represent railway-signals. They stuck out at different angles. He altered several, putting some up, some down, and some at right angles.