学进去

Roberta, Peter and Phyllis lived in a large red-brick house with in London. Roberta was the eldest. Father worked hard in a government office. He was never angry. Mother was almost at home, ready to play with the children, and read the interesting story to them.

These three lucky children always had everything they needed: pretty clothes, good fires, a lovely playroom and a dog called James. They had a happy life, but they did not know the pretty happy life in the large house was over.

The change came quite suddenly.

Peter had his tenth birthday. After dinner, Peter showed Father the toy train. Father looked it over and promised to play with it on Saturday.

At that moment, two men came to see Father. Minutes passed. Father’s voice came out from the study, loud and angry.

More time passed. Then Mother came in and said quietly, “Father’s been called away—on business.”

A week after their father went away. Mother said, “Now, we’re going to move to the countryside. It’s a little white house, called Three Chimneys.”

The family started putting things away: clothes, bowls, candles and also tables and chairs.

“We seem to be taking all the ugly things,” said Roberta.

“We’ll need them in the new house,” said Mother. “We’ve got to play at being poor for a bit.”

Peter said happily, “I do like moving! I wish we moved once a month.”

Mother laughed and said, “I don’t like moving!”

As Mother turned away, Roberta saw her face. She never forgot it.

“Oh, Mother,” she said, “how I love you! You are brave enough to laugh when you’re feeling like that!”

Then they took a train to the countryside. No one knew how long they had been in the train when Mother woke them up.

They stood in the cold night air on the dark platform. At that moment they didn’t know what the train, the railways and the station would mean to them. They didn’t know they were going to be the railway children and have a very different life with the railway later.