One day the children were walking by the fence along the top of the hill, beside the railway line.
The ground was very rocky, but some grass and small trees grew.
The children were looking for wild cherries.
Suddenly they heard a noise.
The noise was soft but very clear, and slowly it began to get louder.
"Look at the tree over there!" shouted Peter.
The girls looked and saw a tree moving slowly down the hill.
The tree was moving toward the railway line!
"It's magic!" said Phyllis. "I knew the railway was magic!
Look, some other trees are moving too!"
It really did seem like magic—all the trees seemed to be walking down the hillside!
A loud rumbling sound filled the air.
"Oh, I don't like it!
Let's go home!" said Phyllis.
But they all watched as the trees slipped slowly down the hillside.
Then some stones and loose earth fell down and rattled on the railway tracks far below.
A big rock began to move too.
"It's all coming down,"
Peter tried to say, but he was too scared to speak.
More rocks, grass, trees, and bushes slipped off the hill and crashed onto the tracks below.
A cloud of dust rose up.
"It's blocked the tracks!" cried Phyllis.
"Yes," said Peter, thinking.
"And the 11:29 hasn't gone past yet.
We must let them know at the station, or there will be a terrible accident," Bobbie said.
"There isn't time!" said Phyllis.
"It's after eleven now," Peter said.
They thought for a moment.
"We need something red to get people's attention," said Peter.
"Then we could go down and wave to the train."
They started to walk down the hill.
Bobbie was pale, and Phyllis was red-faced and worried.
"Oh, how hot I am!" she said.
"I thought it was going to be cold.
I wish we hadn't put on our . . ."
She stopped suddenly and looked excited.
"Our petticoats!" Phyllis cried.
"They're red! Let's take them off!"
The girls took off their petticoats, and the three children ran to the sharp bend in the railway line.
The train would be coming soon.
"Now," said Peter, taking hold of the largest flannel petticoat.
"You're not . . . you're not going to tear them?" asked Phyllis.
"Phyllis, if we can't stop the train, there'll be a real accident, with people killed!" Bobbie said.
Peter divided each petticoat into three pieces.
Then he looked at his watch again.
"We've got seven minutes.
We'll need some sticks as well."
They found some sticks and tied the flannel onto them.
Now they had six red flags.
The children made two little piles of rocks on the tracks, and stuck a red flag in each.
Then Phyllis and Bobbie each took a flag.
"I will have two flags because I'm the one who tore them," said Peter.
"They're our petticoats though," Phyllis began to argue.
But Bobbie interrupted.
"Who cares? We have to save the train!"
Perhaps Peter's watch was slow, or perhaps the train was late.
They seemed to wait for a long time.