The Boxcar Children

by Gertrude Chandler Warner

  “Good-by, Henry,” said Benny.

  So Henry walked off through the woods.

  When he had gone, Jessie said, “Now, children, what do you think we are going to do? What do you think I saw over in the woods? I saw some blueberries!”

  “Oh, oh!” cried Benny. “I know what blueberries are. Can we have blueberries and milk, Jessie?”

  “Yes,” Jessie was beginning. But she suddenly stopped, for she heard a noise. Crack, crack, crack! Something was in the woods.

  IV—Henry Has Two Surprises

  JESSIE WHISPERED, “Keep still!”

  The three children did not say a word. They sat quietly in the boxcar, looking at the bushes.

  “I wonder if it’s a bear,” thought Benny.

  Soon something came out. But it wasn’t a bear. It was a dog, which hopped along on three legs, crying softly and holding up a front paw.

  “It’s all right,” said Jessie. “It’s only a dog, but I think he is hurt.”

  The dog looked up and saw the children, and then he wagged his tail.

  “Poor dog,” said Jessie. “Are you lost? Come over here and let me look at your paw.”

  The dog hopped over to the boxcar, and the children got out.

  Jessie looked at the paw and said, “Oh, dear! You poor dog! There is a big thorn in your foot.”

  The dog stopped crying and looked at Jessie.

  “Good dog,” said Jessie. “I can help you, but maybe it will hurt.”

  The dog looked up at Jessie and wagged his tail again.

  “Violet,” ordered Jessie, “please wet my handkerchief in the brook.”

  Jessie sat down on the stump and took the dog in her lap. She patted him and gave him a little piece of bread. Then she began to pull out the thorn. It was a long thorn, but the dog did not make any noise. Jessie pulled and pulled, and at last the thorn came out.

  Violet had a wet handkerchief ready. Jessie put it around the dog’s paw, and he looked up at her and wagged his tail a little.

  “He wants to say ‘Thank you,’ Jessie!” cried Violet. “He is a good dog not to cry.”

  “Yes, he is,” agreed Jessie. “Now I had better hold him for awhile so that he will lie down and rest his leg.”

  “We can surprise Henry,” remarked Benny. “Now we have a dog.”

  “So we can,” said Jessie. “But that was not my surprise. I was going to get a lot of blueberries for supper.”

  “Can’t we look for blueberries, while you hold the dog?” asked Violet.

  “Yes, you can,” said Jessie. “Look over there by the big trees.”

  Benny and Violet ran over to look.

  “Oh, Jessie!” cried Benny. “Did you ever see so many blueberries? I guess five blue­berries! No, I guess ten blueberries!”

  Jessie laughed. “I guess there are more than five or ten, Benny,” she said. “Get a clean towel and pick them into it.”

  For awhile Jessie watched Benny and Violet picking blueberries.

  “Most of Benny’s blueberries are going into his mouth,” she thought with a laugh. “But maybe that’s just as well. He won’t get so hungry waiting for Henry to come back with the milk.”

  She carried the dog over to the children and sat down beside them, the dog on her lap. With her help the towel was soon full of blueberries.

  “I wish we had some dishes,” Jessie said. “Then we could have blueberries and milk.”

  “Never mind,” said Violet. “When Henry comes, we can eat some blueberries and then take a drink of milk.”

  When Henry came, he had some heavy bundles. He had four bottles of milk in a bag, a loaf of brown bread, and also some fine yellow cheese.

  He looked at the dog.

  “Where did you get that fine dog?” he cried.

  “He came to us,” said Benny. “He is a surprise for you.”

  Henry went over to the dog, who wagged his tail. Henry patted him and said, “He ought to be a good watchdog. Why is the handkerchief on his foot?”

  “He had a big thorn in his foot,” answered Violet, “and Jessie took it out and put on the handkerchief. It hurt him, but he did not cry or growl.”

  “His name is Watch,” remarked Benny.

  “Oh, is it?” asked Jessie, laughing. “Watch is a good name for a watchdog.”

  “Did you bring some milk?” asked Benny, looking hungrily at the bottles.

  “I should say I did!” replied Henry. “Four bottles!”

  “Poor old Benny!” said Jessie. “We’ll have dinner now. Or is it supper?”

  “It must be supper,” said Henry, “for soon we’ll have to go to bed.”

  “Tomorrow we’ll eat three times,” said Jessie.

  Now Jessie liked to have things in order, and so she put the laundry bag on some pine needles for a tablecloth. Then she cut the loaf of brown bread into five big pieces. The cheese was cut into four.

  “Dogs don’t like cheese,” remarked Benny. The poor little boy was glad, too, for he was very hungry.

  Violet put the four bottles of milk on the table, and Jessie put some blueberries and cheese at each place.

  “Blueberries!” cried Henry. “Jessie, you had two surprises for me!”

  “I’m sorry we haven’t any cups,” Jessie said. “We’ll have to drink out of the bottles. Now all come and sit down.”

  So supper began, “Look, Benny,” said Henry. “You take some blueberries, then eat some brown bread, then some cheese, then take a drink of milk.”

  “It’s good!” said Benny. He began to put more blueberries into his mouth.

  The dog had supper, too. Jessie gave him bread as he lay on the ground beside her, and he drank milk out of her hand.

  When supper was over, there was some milk left in each bottle.

  “We’ll have the rest of the milk for breakfast,” said Jessie. “Tonight we are going to sleep on beds. Let’s get some pine needles now.”

  Soon the children had a big pile. Henry jumped into the boxcar, and Jessie gave him the pine needles. He made four beds in one end of the car.

  “This side is the bedroom,” said Jessie.

  “What will the other side be?” asked Benny,

  “The other side?” asked Jessie. “Let me think. I guess that will be the sitting-room, and maybe some of the time it will be the kitchen.”

  Then she said, “Come, now. Come and get washed.” She took the cake of soap and went down to the brook.

  “That will be fun, Benny,” said Violet. “We’ll splash our ‘paws’ in the brook just as Little Brown Bear does.” She knew that Benny did not like to be washed.

  The children were all very hot, and so they were glad to splash in the cold water. Benny put cold water and soap on his face with the others and dried his hands on a towel.

  “We’ll have to have a line to dry the towels on,” said Jessie.

  So she took the string out of the laundry bag and tied one end of it to a tree. The other end of the string she tied to the boxcar. This made a good clothesline. When she had washed one towel and Violet had washed the other one, they hung both towels on the clothesline.

  “It looks like home,” said Henry. “See the washing!” He laughed.

  Jessie was thinking.

  “We ought to get some water to drink before we go to bed,” she said. “But what shall we put it in?”

  “Let’s put all the milk into two bottles,” said Henry. “Then we can fill the other two with water.”

  “Good,” said Jessie. “You go alone to the fountain, Henry. You can hide if anyone comes along.”

  Henry went out very quietly, and soon came back with two bottles full of cold water. Benny drank a little, but he was almost asleep.

  The other children helped him into the boxcar. Then they all climbed in, Jessie carrying the dog. He lay down at once beside her.

  “It is so hot that we’ll leave the door open,” said Henry.

  Soon they were fast asleep, dog and all. The moon came up, but they did n
ot see it. This was the first time in four days that they could go to sleep at night, as children should.

  V—The Explorers Find Treasure

  THE NEXT MORNING Jessie woke up first, and she got up at once, for she was the housekeeper. The dog sat in the door of the car and looked at her as she jumped down to get the milk for breakfast. Then he jumped down after her.

  Jessie walked down by the little brook and stopped to look at the waterfall. It was beautiful.

  “I must look in the refrigerator,” she said with a laugh.

  It was a funny refrigerator. There was a rock behind the waterfall, and the night before Jessie had put the two bottles of milk in a hole in this rock. Now she took out the bottles and found that the milk was very cold.

  “Is it good?” called Benny, who sat in the car door.

  “It is delicious!” cried Jessie. “It is cold, too.”

  She got up into the car with the milk and sat down beside Benny. Then the four children drank the milk for breakfast.

  Henry said, “Today I’ll go to town and try to get some work to do. I can cut grass or work in a garden or something. Then we’ll have something besides milk for breakfast,”

  He washed his hands and face and started out.

  “I’m so glad you have a dog, Jessie,” he said. “Good-by! I ’ll be back at noon.”

  The children looked after Henry, and then they looked at Jessie.

  “What are we going to do now, Jessie?” Benny asked his sister.

  “Well, Benny,” answered Jessie, “we’ll go exploring and look for treasures. We’ll begin here at the car and look and look until we find a dump.”

  “What’s a dump?” asked Benny.

  “Oh, Benny!” said Violet. “You know what a dump is. Old tin cans and old dishes and bottles.”

  “Are old tin cans and dishes treasures?” Benny wanted to know.

  “They will be treasures for us,” answered Jessie, laughing.

  “And wheels?” asked Benny again. “Will there be any wheels on the dump?”

  “Yes, maybe,” replied Violet. “But cups, Benny, and plates, and maybe spoons. You like to drink milk out of a cup.”

  “Oh, yes,” agreed Benny politely. But anyone could see that his mind was still on wheels.

  The explorers started walking down the old rusty tracks, with Watch hopping along on three legs. The other paw, still tied up with Jessie’s handkerchief, was held off the ground. But the dog looked very happy. He liked these kind children.

  They all walked along through the woods, looking this way and that. After awhile the old track came out into the sun, and the explorers found that they were on top of a hill. They could look down and see the town below them.

  “Henry is down there,” said Jessie.

  Benny was walking along behind his two sisters.

  Suddenly he cried happily, “Look, Jessie! There’s a treasure—a wheel!”

  The girls looked where he was pointing, and they saw a big dump with many old bottles and tin cans on it. There were also both wheels and cups. Indeed, there were dishes of all kinds.

  “Oh, Benny!” cried Jessie. “You saw the treasures first. What should we do without you!”

  Violet ran over to the dump. “Here’s a white pitcher, Jessie!” she cried.

  Jessie looked at it. It was all right, with only one small crack.

  “Here’s a big white cup, too,” she said, happily.

  “Can you use a teapot, Jessie?” asked Benny.

  “Yes, indeed!” she replied. “We can put water in it. I have found two cups and a bowl. Let’s look for spoons, too!”

  Violet held up what she had found—five spoons, covered with rust.

  “Good!” said Jessie. “Here’s a big kettle. Let’s pile all the dishes in it. Then we can carry them back to the boxcar.”

  Benny had found four wheels just alike and laid them to one side. Now he held up a pink cup. There was a big crack in it, but it had a handle.

  “This will be my pink cup,” said Benny.

  “I hope it will hold milk,” said Jessie, laughing. “It’s a beautiful cup, Benny.”

  The children laid all their treasures, even the wheels, on a board, and the girls carried the board back to the boxcar between them. They put the dishes down by the brook.

  “Now we must wash them,” said Jessie.

  “All right,” agreed Benny. “We’ll wash my pink cup.”

  And never did a little boy hand dishes so carefully to his sisters as Benny did.

  The girls washed the dishes with soap, and Jessie used sand to get the rust off the spoons.

  “There!” she said, washing the last shining spoon. “How fine they look! But I’m afraid they still aren’t clean enough to eat from. When Henry comes, we’ll get him to build a fire. Then we can have hot water to rinse them, and they will be very clean.”

  The children sat back and admired the dishes.

  Suddenly Violet cried, “Oh, I know where to put them. Come and see what I found in the car last night.”

  Both girls looked in at the door.

  “Look on the door on the other side of the car,” said Violet.

  All Jessie saw were two pieces of wood nailed to the closed door of the car. But she knew at once what was in Violet’s mind. She ran to get the board they had carried from the dump and laid it carefully across the two pieces of wood. It made a fine shelf for the dishes.

  “There!” said Jessie.

  The children could hardly wait to put the shining dishes on the shelf.

  “Let’s put them on now,” said Violet, “and see how they look, without waiting to rinse them.”

  When they were on the shelf, Violet picked some white and yellow flowers and put them in a cup full of water in the middle of the shelf.

  “There!” said Jessie, stepping back to look at it.

  “You said ‘There’ three times,” remarked Benny happily.

  “So I did,” replied Jessie, laughing. “And I’m going to say it again.”

  She pointed into the woods and said, “There!”

  Henry was coming through the woods, and he carried many funny-looking bundles in his arms. But he would not open his bundles or tell what he had been doing until it was time for dinner.

  “Where did you get the dishes?” he cried, when he saw the shelf.

  “We went exploring,” said Violet, “and found a big dump.”

  The children began telling him about their treasures. Benny told him about the tin cans and his pink cup and his wheels. Jessie took out the big kettle and asked him about building a fire.

  “We want to use the dishes to eat from,” she told him, “and it’s hard to get them clean in cold water.”

  So Henry made a small fire in an open place where it could not burn anything. He put big stones all around it.

  “We ought to have a fireplace,” he remarked.

  Jessie cleaned the kettle with sand and filled it with water. Then Henry put it on the fire. Soon the water was boiling, and Jessie rinsed the dishes carefully.

  “Now I know they’re clean enough to eat from,” she said happily.

  VI—A Queer Noise in the Night

  AT LAST IT WAS dinner time, and the children sat down to see what Henry had in his bundles.

  “I bought another loaf of brown bread at the store,” said Henry, “and some more milk. Then I bought some dried meat, because we can eat it in our hands. And I bought a bone for Watch.”

  Watch looked hungrily at the bone and lay down at once to eat it.

  Jessie got out four cups and bowls and put some milk into each one. Then the children put in little pieces of brown bread and began to eat it with their new spoons.

  “What fun!” cried Jessie. “Eating with spoons. Now tell us what you did in town, Henry.”

  Henry began, “The town below this hill is Silver City. I saw the name on a sign.

  “I went into the town and walked along the first street I came to. It was a nice street, with
big houses and flowers and trees. I saw a man out cutting his grass. He’s a good man, too, I can tell you—a doctor.”

  “Did you work for him?” asked Jessie.

  “Yes,” said Henry. “He was very hot, and just as I came to the house, his bell rang. He started to the house, and I called after him and asked him if I could cut the grass. He said, ‘Yes, yes! I wish you would!’ You see, he wasn’t used to cutting it himself.

  “So I cut the grass, and he said, ‘Good for you. Do you want to work every day?’ And he said he had never had a boy who cut it as well as I did.”

  “Oh, Henry!” cried Violet and Jessie.

  “I told him I did want to work, and he told me to come back this afternoon.

  “He has a pretty house and a garage and a big vegetable garden. Then he has a lot of cherry trees behind the house—a cherry orchard. You should see the beautiful big red cherries!

  “Well, when I was cutting the grass near the kitchen, the cook came to the kitchen door and watched me.

  “She asked me if I liked cookies. I said I did, and she gave me one.”

  “What did you do with it?” asked Benny hungrily.

  “When she went back into the kitchen, I put it in my pocket,” said Henry laughing.

  “Did she see you?” cried Jessie.

  “Oh, no,” said Henry. “I played I was eating it. For a long time I carefully ate away on nothing at all.”

  Benny began to look at Henry’s pocket. It did look very funny.

  Henry went on. “When I came home, the doctor gave me a dollar, and the cook gave me this bag.”

  Henry laughed at Benny and pulled the bag out of his pocket. In it were ten delicious brown cookies.

  “Oh, oh!” cried Benny. “Please, Jessie! Let’s have cookies for dinner.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Jessie.

  Then Henry opened his last bundle.

  “I thought we ought to have a tablecloth,” he said. “So I got one at the store. But it wasn’t hemmed.”

  Violet begged, “Oh, let me hem it.”

  She took her scissors out of her workbag and cut the two ends even. But before she began to hem the pretty blue tablecloth, she helped Jessie wash and rinse the dishes and put them away. Benny helped, too. When Henry said good-by and went back to town, all the children were working happily.