These were planned something like
curtain-cords, and Solomon John frequently amused himself by
pulling one of the little boys up or letting him down.
Some conversation did again fall upon the old difficulty of
questions. Elizabeth Eliza declared that it was not always
necessary to answer; that many who could did not answer
questions,the conductors of the railroads, for instance, who
probably knew the names of all the stations on a road, but were
seldom able to tell them.
"Yes," said Agamemnon, "one might be a conductor without even
knowing the names of the stations, because you can't understand
them when they do tell them!"
"I never know," said Elizabeth Eliza, "whether it is ignorance in
them, or unwillingness, that prevents them from telling you how
soon one station is coming, or how long you are to stop, even if
one asks ever so many times. It would be useful if they would
tell."
Mrs. Peterkin thought this was carried too far in the horse-cars in
Boston. The conductors had always left you as far as possible
from the place where you wanted to stop; but it seemed a little too
much to have the aldermen take it up, and put a notice in the cars,
ordering the conductors "to stop at the farthest crossing."
Mrs. Peterkin was, indeed, recovering her spirits. She had been
carrying on a brisk correspondence with Philadelphia, that she had
imparted to no one, and at last she announced, as its result, that
she was ready for a breakfast on educational principles.
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