It was a rather old and broken-down platform, just as Roland proved to be a rather old and broken-down place, and the girls stood on it ruefully as they watched the train rumble off in the distance.
"Now we're in for it," said Billie, her eyes taking in a disconsolate-looking store or two and a drooping post-office. "I wonder if this is what they call the village?"
"Well, we're not going to live here," said Mrs. Gilligan briskly. "And you can't expect to find a thriving town away off a hundred miles from nowhere. Come on, let's see if we can find some sort of a wagon to take us and our belongings to Cherry Corners. I don't suppose," she added, as they crossed the street toward a building a little more dilapidated than the rest that had the words Livery Stable painted on a blurred sign over the door, "that there is any sort of hotel or boarding house where we might put up for the night."
"Mother didn't remember about that. You see she had been here only once," said Billie. "But I don't imagine there is—any place that we would want to stay at," she added, making a wry little face.
The place, in truth, was not attractive, nor did it promise much, outwardly at least, as a refuge for the night. Besides the street on which were the forlorn looking stores and the post-office and a few other nondescript looking buildings that might have been used for almost any possible purpose, there seemed to be but two streets on which were built the dwelling houses. These, for the most part, were simple and plain enough, each with its yard, well or ill kept, in front and a garden and chicken yard behind. Only one was a little more pretentious in appearance, but that, too, had attached to it its garden and chicken yard.
However, they found that there was no necessity for their finding a place, if place there was to be found to stay for the night. They found the owner of the livery stable with two old but well-preserved vehicles which he was eager to place at their disposal.
They spent some time in getting enough provisions to last for a time and to supplement what had been sent from North Bend; then, in half an hour more, with their luggage coming on behind, they were lumbering off over a very rocky road toward the house at Cherry Corners.
Mrs. Gilligan was sitting in front with the driver while the three girls were wedged uncomfortably in the back seat.
"It—it's lucky we're not fat!" gasped Laura, as a particularly rough place in the road fairly shook the breath out of her. "I don't know where we would have put ourselves."
"One of us would have had to sit on the trunks on the cart," chuckled Billie. "Ouch!" she cried, as they bounced over another "thank you ma'am," "I'm glad we haven't any more than five miles to go. There wouldn't be any of us left alive."