"After Eb Brewster, too," the other man said; "and him crazier'n a loon."

"Hadn't ought ter be thirty mile nuther," the man with one suspender said; "that three oughter be an eight. Noow York is eighty mile on the rail."

They all stood there squinting up at the _Brewster's Centre_ sign, and all of a sudden I had a thought and I whispered to the fellows, "Don't spoil the plot, it's growing thicker. Let me do the talking."

One of the men said to the others, "I alluz allowed Eb was jest talkin'

crazy when he said haow he had friends amongst them big railroad maganates. But the taown haint never goin' to stand fer this, it haint."

Then I spoke up and said very sober-like, "What _used_ to be the name of this town?"

The man said, "'Taint youster; _'tis_. This here taown is Ridgeboro, Noow York, and so it'll stay, by thunder!"

"Good night!" I said, and all the fellows started to laugh.

Because then I knew how it was. We must have been picked up by the wrong train--a train going the other way. And the conductor must have had _Ridgeboro_ instead of _Bridgeboro_ on his paper. Oh, boy, that was some bull. And just as luck would have it, the people of that place were expecting the railroad to give them a new station. I didn't know where the old station was; I guessed there wasn't any.

Connie whispered to me, "Who do you suppose Eb Brewster is?"

"Search _me_," I told him; "but I bet he'll be tickled to death to find that the town is named after him."

CHAPTER VII

ON TO SKIDDYUNK

I didn't want him to ask us any more questions, so I said I guessed we'd go and look for the town if he would tell us where we could find it. He got kind of mad at that, because that was the town right there, and all the while we didn't know it. Gee whiz, how could _we_ tell? He said some day that town would be as big as Skiddyunk and that once upon a time New York had only one store, too.

"It has one store three or four now," I said.

Then he told us that Skiddyunk was about one mile along the track and that we'd see it as soon as we got around the bend. I guess Ridgeboro was just kind of on the edge of Skiddyunk. Gee whiz, if the railroad was going to give it a station, that station ought not to be a car. A wheelbarrow would be good enough.

"I wish we had some money, I know that," Connie said, as we were walking along the ties. "That's the only thing that's worrying _me_."

"Same here," I told him, "but we're going to have a lot of fun here, believe me; I can see it coming."

"Keep your eyes peeled and see if you see a train coming," Westy said.

Can you beat that fellow? Oh, but he's a reckless boy--not.

"Careful Carl," I said.

"What do you do with all the money you spend?" Connie wanted to know.

"Oh, I save it," I told him; "ask me another one."

"Who do you think Eb Brewster is?" Pee-wee piped up.

"He's the man the town is named after," I said; "good night, there's going to be some fun around this way. I'm glad I'm not the railroad."

"I bet those men will take that sign down," Wig said.

"I bet they'll put it up again, then," I told him.

"Are you going to tell them the station is for them?" Pee-wee asked me.

"A scout is truthful," I said; "why should I tell them that? I'm just going to keep still and see what happens. I may decide to name the car after Eb Brewster. I should worry. We can name it after anybody we want to name it after, can't we? Jiminetty, I'm glad we're here; we dropped in at the right place."

"One thing, I'm glad Monday's Columbus Day," Pee-wee said.

"Believe _me_" I told him, "Columbus never discovered anything like this. I could kind of read in that man's face, the one with the suspender----"

"He didn't have the suspender on his face," Pee-wee shouted.

"Take a demerit for that, and stay after school," I told him. "I could kind of read in that man's face, that there is going to be some fun in Ridgeboro."

"A tempest in a teapot, hey?" Westy said.

"You ought to apologize to the next teapot you meet," I shot back at him. "Teapots aren't so small."

Pretty soon we got around the bend and then we could see the Skiddyunk Station. It was a regular station with a platform and everything, all fancy kind of.

"It makes the poor little Brewster's Centre Station look like a dollar and a quarter," Connie said.

I said, "I haven't seen a dollar and a quarter for so long that I can't tell, but the Brewster's Centre Station has traveled; that's what counts."

Before we got to the station we saw where tracks branched off from the tracks we were following, so we knew that all the trains that pa.s.sed Skiddyunk didn't pa.s.s Ridgeboro. I guess they didn't bother with that place much. At the Skiddyunk Station we got a time table and found that only one train a day pa.s.sed Ridgeboro. It didn't go much further than Ridgeboro. I guess it got sick, hey? It only went as far as Slopson.

Then we asked the express agent about freight trains and he said that a freight train went along that branch line every three days. He said there wouldn't be another one going east till Tuesday morning.

Oh, boy, weren't we glad!

"I'll miss French and civil government," Westy said.

Connie said he'd only miss history.

"I'll lose English and geography," I said; "but I won't miss them. Come on up the main street and let's see if we can find an ice-cream store."

CHAPTER VIII

LABOR TROUBLES