“I’ll go and ask my mother,” said the oldest girl. “Now don’t any of you dare go outside the fence!” she warned the others—her smaller brothers and sisters it seemed. “If you do a gobile might hit you.”
“What’s a gobile?” asked Janet.
“It’s what he calls an automobile,” explained the older girl, and she pointed to a small boy about the size of Trouble.
She hurried into the house, the others, meanwhile, looking eagerly through the fence palings at the goat and wagon. Jan and Ted had gotten out, ready for business in case this family of boys and girls wanted a ride.
“Maw gimme a quarter,” explained the girl when she came hurrying back, “and she says will you give us all a ride down the road and back and keep us out half an hour so she can git some rest.”
“All right,” said Janet. “We’ll give you a nice ride for twenty-five cents. But will you let my little brother stay in the wagon with you? He’s too small to walk and we can’t leave him.”
“Sure he can come,” said the girl, whose hair was almost red. “I’ll hold him on my lap. I’m used to children.”
“If you hold him maybe he won’t sing,” Ted told her.
“Sing? Oh, I don’t mind singin’. I like it!” said the almost red-haired girl with a laugh. “Our Babs sings lots, though we never can tell what he’s sayin’,” and she pointed to the smallest child.
“I will not sing!” decided Trouble, with a little stamp of his foot. “I will not sing ’less I wide on Nicknack’s back!”