"What is the riddle, Laddie? Do I know it?"
"You can try to guess it, Vi," said the eager little boy. "Now listen! 'How do we know Robinson Crusoe had plenty of fish to eat?'"
"'Cause the island was in the water," said Vi promptly. "Of course there were fish."
"Well, that isn't the answer," Laddie said slowly.
"Why isn't it?"
"Because—because the answer is something about Friday. You fry fish, you know—And anyway, Crusoe's man was named Friday."
"Pooh!" scoffed Vi. "You fry bacon and eggs and lots of other things, besides those nice pancakes Norah makes for breakfast when we're at home. I don't think much of that riddle, Laddie Bunker, so now!"
"I guess it is a good riddle if I only knew how to ask it," complained her twin. "But somehow I've got it mixed up."
"Don't ask any more riddles like that. They make me hungry," declared Vi. "And there isn't a candy shop or anything around here."
She came very near to speaking the exact truth that time. On both sides of the railroad track where they now walked so wearily there seemed to be almost a desert. There were neither houses nor trees, and although the country was rolling, it was not at all pleasant in appearance.