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“It is very interesting, but I should enjoy it more if I was not grinding my nose against the rough side of this leather bag,” whispered Dora, who lay undermost just then.

“So should I, if a heavy book was not pinching my toes. I’ve tried to kick it away, but it won’t stir, and keeps droning on about reports and tariffs and such dull things,” answered Flora, with a groan.

“Do you like travelling?” asked Dora, presently, when the letters and papers fell asleep, lulled by the motion of the cars.

“Not yet, but I shall when I can look about me. This bundle near by says the mails are often sorted in the cars, and in that way we shall see something of the world, I hope,” answered Flora, cheering up, for, like her mamma, she was of an enquiring turn.

The dolls took a nap of some hours, and were roused by a general tumbling out on a long shelf, where many other parcels lay, and lively men sent letters and papers flying here and there as if a whirlwind was blowing. A long box lay beside the dolls who stood nearly erect leaning against a pile of papers. Several holes were cut in the lid, and out of one of them was thrust a little black nose, as if trying to get air.

“Dear me! what can be in it?” said Flora, who was nearest.

“I’m a poor little alligator, going to a boy in Chicago, if you please, and I want my mother,” sobbed a voice from the box, and there was a rap on the lid as of an agitated tail.

“Mercy on us! I hope we shall not have to travel with the monster,” whispered Dora, trying to see over her shoulder.

“I’m not afraid. He can’t be very dreadful, for the box is not any longer than we are. Natural history is very useful; I’ve heard mamma say so, and I shall talk with him while we rest here,” answered Flo, nodding toward the eye which now took the place of the nose.

So the little alligator told her something of his home on the banks of a great river, where he was just learning to play happily with his brothers and sisters, when he was caught and sent away to pine in captivity.

The dolls comforted him as well as they could, and a pair of baby’s shoes travelling in an envelope sympathized with him, while a shabby bundle directed to “Michael Dolan, at Mrs. Judy Quin’s, next door to Mr. Pat Murphy, Boston, North street,” told them to “Whisht and slape quite till they came forninst the place.”

“Such low people!” whispered Do to Flo, and both stood primly silent till they were tumbled into another mail bag, and went rattling on again with a new set of companions.

“I hope that poor baby will go safely and the boy be good to him,” said Flora, for the little alligator went with the live stock in some other way.

“Thank goodness he didn’t go with us! I shall dream about that black nose and winking eye, I’m sure. The dangers of travelling are great, but we are safe and comfortable now, I think,” and Dora settled down in a cozy corner of the bag, wondering when they should reach Chicago.

“I like adventures and hope we shall have some,” answered Flora, briskly, little dreaming how soon her wish was to be granted.

A few hours later there come a bump, a crash, a cry, and then all the mail bags rolled one over the other with the car down an embankment into a river.

“Now we are dead!” shrieked the poor dolls, clinging together as they heard the splash of water, the shouting of men, the splintering of wood, and the hiss of steam.

“Don’t be frightened, ladies, mail bags are always looked after,” said a large envelope with an official seal and the name of a Senator on it.