Ned and his mother stood on the corner by the florist's shop waiting for the trolley car. Soon it came jangling up the track. Ned waved his hand to the motorman and the big wheels squealed like a dozen little pigs as the car slowed down and stopped. Ned had the money for their fare held tight in his hand he always gave it to the conductor himself. He and Mother stepped aboard, and, the car started up with a jerk, they stumbled inside and made their way unsteadily to the only seat that was not already filled. Oh, but Ned was happy! He loved to go down town on the trolley car. He loved the bumping and the jiggling and all the wonderful sights. Today he was especially happy because he was going to meet his cousin, Ruth, and her mother, who lived in the country, and they were to have a long, beautiful day together in the city. He did not know what they were going to do to have a jolly time. Mother had kept that a secret, but he had seen Father slip out of the front door very quickly and mysteriously that morning as if he were carrying something, and he guessed-but then, never mind what he guessed-it was all a secret. As Ned looked out of the window, he saw a long row of stores with the gaily decorated front of a moving picture theatre among them, and then they whizzed past a row of tall apartment buildings, three and four stories high, where people made their homes all on a floor, one family above another. It was on the top floor of just such a building that Ned and his father and mother lived. Apartment houses and then stores, and then more apartment houses and more stores. That was what he saw all the way down town. "When I grow up," cried Ned as their motorman clanged his bell loudly, "I'm going to be a motorman!" "Oh," said his mother, "I thought you said yesterday you wanted to be a hurdy-gurdy man and have a street piano and a monkey." "No," announced Ned positively, "I'm going to be a motorman, and then you'll see how I'll bang my foot down on the bell and make a big noise, clang, clang! clang, clang! and all the people will run to get out of the way of my car!" So they went on for almost an hour, sometimes whizzing, sometimes jogging, sometimes crawling in a crowd behind some slow-moving delivery wagon that could not get off the tracks. At last they crossed the river and reached the market place of the city, where all the fruit and vegetables came in. There the delivery wagons, with their backs to the sidewalk, were crowded so close together that the horses stood straight out into the street, their noses up to the very trolley tracks. "Oh, Mother, Mother, we almost nipped that horse's nose!" squealed Ned, as they passed. Shortly after that, Mother pressed a button beside their seat to let the conductor know they wanted |