"I don't know. A hen-house, Laddie?"
"Pooh! They don't build hen-houses right down beside railroad tracks, and just where a road crosses the tracks."
"Don't they? What do they build there, then?"
"Why," cried Laddie, quite delighted at his discovery, "a flagman's house. That is what that little house is, Vi. A flagman stays there to stop people from crossing the tracks when the train is coming. There! There's the flagman now. See him?"
Just as Laddie spoke so excitedly a man came out of the little house, and he bore a flag in his hand. Unnoticed by the children, there had begun behind them a rumbling sound, and the rails between which they walked began to hum. There was a train coming from the east.
The flagman unrolled his flag, and then he looked both ways along the road that crossed the railroad. Then he turned and saw the two little folks coming toward him. At sight of them he became much more excited than the children were.
"Look out-a da train!" he shouted. "Look out-a da train!"
"What does he say?" asked Vi curiously.
The flagman began to wave his arms and the flag, and ran toward the twins. He was a man with a very dark face, and his hair was black and curly. But what interested Laddie and Vi most about the flagman was that he wore big gold rings in his ears.
"Look out-a da train!" shouted the flagman again.