here's a new railroad car coming tonight," said Miyo-chan during the lunchtime break. Miyo-chan was the headmaster's third daughter and was in Totto-chan's class. There were already six cars lined up together as classrooms, but one more was coming. Miyo-chan said it was going to be a library car. They were all terribly excited.

"I wonder what route it will take to get to the school," someone said.

It was a challenging topic. There was a momentary hush.

"Maybe it will come along the Oimachi Line tracks and then branch off this way at that level crossing," someone suggested.

"Then it would have to derail," said someone else.

"Maybe they'll just bring it on a cart," said another.

"There wouldn't be a cart big enough to hold one of those cars," someone pointed out immediately.

“I suppose not...”

Ideas petered out. The children realized a railroad car certainly wouldn't fit on a cart or even a truck.

"Rails!" said Totto-chan after much thought.

"You know, they're probably going to lay some rails right here to the school!"

"From where?" asked someone.

"Where? From wherever the train is now," said Totto-chan, beginning to think her idea wasn't such a good one, after all. She had no idea where the car was coming from, and, anyway, they wouldn't pull down houses and things in order to lay tracks in a straight line to the school.

After much fruitless discussion of one possibility after another, the children finally decided not to go home that afternoon but to wait and see the car arrive. Miyo-chan was elected to go and ask her father, the headmaster, if they could all remain at school until that night. It was some while before she came back.

"The car is arriving terribly late tonight," she said, "after all the other trains have stopped running. Anybody who really wants to see it will have to go home first and ask permission. Then they can come back if they like with their pajamas and a blanket after they've had their dinner.

"Wow!" The children were more excited than ever.

"He said to bring our pajamas?"

"And blankets?"

That afternoon no one could concentrate on the lessons. After school, the children in Totto-chan's class went straight home, all hoping they'd be lucky enough to see each other again that night complete with pajamas and blankets.

As soon as she reached home, Totto-chan said to Mother, "A train's coming. We don't know how it's going to get there. Pajamas and a blanket. May I go?"

What mother could grasp the situation with that kind of explanation! Totto-chan's mother had no idea what she meant. But judging by the serious look on her daughter's face, she guessed something unusual was afoot.

Mother asked Totto-chan all sorts of questions. She finally discovered what it was all about and what exactly was going to happen. She thought Totto-chan ought to see it, as she wouldn't have many such opportunities. She even thought she'd like to see the car arrive herself.

Mother got out Totto-chan's pajamas and a blanket, and after dinner she took her to the school. About ten children were there. They included some of the older students who had heard of the event. A couple of other mothers, too, had come with their children. They looked as if they would like to stay, but after entrusting their children to the head-master's care, they went home.

"I’ll wake you up when it comes," the children were assured by the headmaster as they lay down in the Assembly Hall wrapped in their blankets.

The children thought they wouldn't be able to sleep for wondering how the train would get there.

But after so much excitement, they were tired and soon became drowsy. Before they could say, "Be sure and wake me up," most of them fell fast asleep.

"It's here! It's here!"

Awakened by a babble of voices, Totto-chan jumped up and ran through the school grounds and out the gate. A great big railroad car was just visible in the morning haze. It was like a dream--a train coming along the road without tracks making no sound.

It had come on a large trailer pulled by a tractor from the Oimachi Line depot. Totto-chan and the others learned something they didn't know before--that there was something called a tractor that could pull a trailer, which was much bigger than a cart. They were impressed.

The car moved slowly along the deserted morning road mounted on the trailer.

Soon there was a great commotion. There were no giant cranes in those days, so to get the car off the trailer and to its destination in the school grounds was a tremendous operation. The men who brought it had to lay several big logs under the car and gradually roll it off the trailer onto the schoolyard.

"Watch carefully," said the headmaster, "they're called rollers. Rolling power is being used to move that big car.”

The children looked on earnestly.

"Heave-ho, heave-ho," chanted the workmen as they toiled, and the sun itself seemed to be rising in time to their rhythmic cries.

Like the other six already at the school, this car, which had carried so many people, had its wheels removed. Its traveling life was over. From now on it would carry the sound of children's laughter.

As the boys and girls stood there in the morning sunshine in their pajamas, they were so happy they couldn't contain their joy and kept jumping up and down, clasping the headmaster around the neck and swinging from his arms.

Staggering under the onslaught, the headmaster smiled happily. Seeing his joy, the children smiled, too.

And none of them ever forgot how happy they were.