rush the five-cent engines that his father so frequently brought him.
These engines were made of cast-iron, and to the adult eye they looked indestructible, though in the hands of an experienced toy-breaking child they proved fragile and came apart with disconcerting frequency. As for getting lost, one might talk to Alice about what became of all the hairpins in the world which were lost. That to her was a simple problem. But what became of all the cast-iron toys was what she wanted to know.
To this question there was no answer. They disappeared from the earth's surface: that was all she knew, and next thing Jamie was demanding another engine to shove along his block tracks—yes, and getting it, although she pointed out to Tom that Jamie was now quite of an age to take care of things, and be deprived of things for a time if he could not learn to take care of them better. To which Tom replied that it was probably the older children's fault that Jamie's toys got lost. More than that, Tom had always pined for engines in his own youth and never had as many as he wanted, and any child of his who wanted five-cent engines should have as many as he could use. That is the way that fathers uphold family discipline.
So there was on the one hand, Jamie performing his solemn games—his mother sometimes wondered if one could call them by the name of playing, so concentrated was he—and on the other the elusive and vanishing Robert. Between the two of them the gregarious Sara.
She was perfectly willing to play with her younger brother, but she was willing to play with him only on her own terms. She didn't like railways or railway tracks. She was forever wanting to pretend that engines were something which they were not; she was for-
