“I thought so,” answered the passenger, with a knowing wink. “He's got the right spirit, but I'd like to know one thing: where did you get that 'ere red flag?”
“It's my sister's flannel skirt,” said Harry.
“And who was so awful 'cute as to think of it?”
“Why, Nan, of course,” Harry replied, and as though Nan's “'cuteness” was a widely-accepted fact.
They had all been walking back toward the train as they talked, and now a warning whistle from the engineer hurried every one on board. As the wheels of the car began to turn slowly, the old mammy was the first to descry the little flannel skirt, whose mention had caused so much merriment, flying from the stick, which Harry had thrust into the ground when he had no farther use for it.
“Oh, see!” she cried, pointing towards it, “that's how she did it—she did make a flag of it. Now that's what I call 'cute.”
“'Cute, I should say so,” exclaimed the passenger who had been talking with Regie. “Let's give 'em three cheers as we go, one apiece, and the last and the loudest for the girl—the smart little owner of the little red skirt.” At the sound of the hearty cheering Nan raised her head, with a smile shining through her tears. She had heard the old mammy's exclamation, and then she understood why the people had laughed when she told them she had stopped the train with her flannel skirt. How stupid of her not to have explained that she made a flag of it! Four slow puffs from the locomotive were heard above the cheering, then a dozen short quick ones, and in another second the train had rounded the curve and was out of sight, though for several minutes they could hear the noise of it growing fainter and fainter in the distance.
“Well, now we had better hurry home,” said Rex, drawing a long breath. “It wall be seven o'clock before we get there, and Sister Julia will be awfully worried.”
Nan readjusted the little skirt that had done such good and novel service, and then they hurried back to Pet and the cart as fast as Regie could manage to get over the ground.
It was indeed nearly seven o'clock before they reached home, and Sister Julia was worried—worried enough to have been waiting at the gate an hour, peering up and down the road in the deepening twilight, wondering what could have happened, and which way they would come home, and sometimes wondering if they ever would come at all. Oh! how happy she felt when she recognised the patter of Pet's nimble feet on the hard boulevard, long before she could discover the little turnout itself.