“Better look out or you’ll have to swim to grandpa’s if you drink much more,” laughed Daddy Martin.
Then Mother Martin took Baby William on her lap and talked to him, telling him a little story that sent him to Slumberland, thus giving Ted and Jan a rest from going up and down the car aisle after drinks of water for their little brother.
In the afternoon the train reached the village, and there was Grandpa Martin smiling and looking eagerly at each coach to get the first glimpse of his loved ones.
“Well, well! Here you are! Here you are!” he cried as he saw them. “Right over this way is the team! Pile in! Pile in!”
The patient horses stood waiting. The big wagon held the whole family, trunks and all. Jan and Ted looked curiously at their grandfather at first, as if to see whether his trouble had changed him any. But if he was worrying, he did not show it, and the two Curlytops breathed easier.
“Is the farm there all right?” Jan could not help asking, as grandpa turned the horses down the shady road.
“All there—what the high water didn’t wash away,” he answered with a laugh, and hearing this the children felt better.
“And how is Trouble?” asked grandpa, looking at the baby. “Did he cut up any coming down?”
“No, he was pretty good,” laughed the baby’s mother, and then she and daddy and grandpa talked, while Jan and Ted looked at houses and other things along the road, trying to remember what they had seen on their last visit to the country.
“Oh, there’s the house!” cried Ted as the horses trotted around a turn in the highway.