At first Polly couldn’t hear herself think. But after a short time she grew used to the noise of the train and could hear the different sounds all about her in the baggage car in which she lay.
Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Squawk! Squawk!
‘Hens,’ thought Polly, who had often gone with Patty to visit the chicken coops at the back of Grandmother’s yard.
Then she heard a low whining and scuffling as in answer to the outcry of the hens, and the next moment a dog lifted his voice in a series of sharp little barks.
And, would you believe it, Polly understood every word he said.
‘I am Twinkle. Bow-wow!’ said the little dog.
And if Polly could only have looked through her box and seen him, she would have thought that he couldn’t have a better name. For not only was there a gay twinkle in his bright black eye, but the curly tuft of hair on the tip of his tail seemed to twinkle also as he waved it to and fro. While his soft black nose was a shining little spot that might easily have been called a twinkle, too.
‘Bow-wow!’ said Twinkle again. ‘I belong to Jimmy, and Jimmy has broken his leg. Wow! Wow!’
‘Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!’ answered the sympathetic hens. ‘Too bad! Too bad! Too bad!’
‘I wish I could talk to him,’ said Polly to herself. ‘I am going to try.’