The
forests rushed by; the flag station rushed by; fences and telegraph
poles rushed by; but the train stood still. A broad river with a long
bridge came toward it, but the river and the bridge glided along under
the train with perfect ease. Finally a railway station appeared. The
station master stood on the platform with his red flag, and moved slowly
toward the train.
When he waved his little flag, the locomotive belched even darker smoke
curls than before, and whistled mournfully because it had to stand
still. All of a sudden it began to move toward the south, like
everything else.
The boy saw all the coach doors open and the passengers step out while
both cars and people were moving southward.
He glanced away from the earth and tried to look straight ahead. Staring
at the queer railway train had made him dizzy; but after he had gazed
for a moment at a little white cloud, he was tired of that and looked
down again--thinking all the while that the eagle and himself were quite
still and that everything else was travelling on south. Fancy! Suppose
the grain field just then running along under him--which must have been
newly sown for he had seen a green blade on it--were to travel all the
way down to Skane where the rye was in full bloom at this season!
Up here the pine forests were different: the trees were bare, the
branches short and the needles were almost black.
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