Billy and Bobby were up dressed and out of their cabin and on their way to Amanda’s house just as the sun was coming up.  They wanted to get a very early start; they had a lot of things they wanted to get done.  The first was telling the Professor what they found up on the hill.  When they got to Amanda’s she was already waiting at the door.  Amanda joined the boys and they walked down the hill to The Professor’s house.

“I hope we aren’t waking him up,” Billy said, as the front door opened.

“Good morning Professor,” Amanda said, “I hope we didn’t wake you up.”

“Oh my no,” The Professor replied, “I’m up before the sun every morning, and what are you all doing here so early?” he added.

Bobby told The Professor about what they found up behind the old house, and that they wanted to see if any of their Woodland friends would like to help them clean up the Woodland Bell and see if they could get it running.

The Professor told Bobby that he would ask Alex to fly around the Woodland, and ask if anyone would like to help. Bobby, Billy and Amanda told The Professor that they were going to go up to the old house and start cleaning up the Woodland Bell. The Professor told them that he would be there to help as soon as he talked to Alex the Eagle. 

Amanda and the boys said good-bye to The Professor and headed off to the old train station up in the woods.  When they got there Bobby and Billy pulled open the big doors of the building where the Woodland Bell was being stored. As they walked in they heard Shadow greet them a good morning.  

“Good morning,” Bobby said, returning the greeting.

“Did we wake you?” he asked.

“No, “Shadow replied.

He explained that he was back from work early and had already had a good nights sleep.  Billy asked if they worked on the Woodland Bell, would it be a problem for him.  

“Not at all,” replied Shadow, “if I need a nap I can always use Brownie’s cave.”

The boys and Amanda had brought plenty of rags, buckets and polish to clean the Woodland Bell and realized as they got started that it was pretty dark inside the building.  Bobby heard footsteps coming up the railroad tracks toward the building and went outside to find almost all of his Woodland friends coming with everything that they needed to clean up the locomotive.  Brownie and Marvin were there along with Randy and Raymond, Digger, Alex and even Edward, Edmond and Elizabeth the elephants.

“Where’s The Professor?” Billy asked.

“Up here,” The Professor replied.

Billy looked up and saw The Professor riding on Edwards back.  As The Professor slid down off of Edwards back he explained that Edward offered him a ride up the hill.  Being older and wiser he knew that riding up the hill was much better then walking up it.  The Professor turned to Edward and thanked him for the ride.

“It was my pleasure,” Edward said, as everyone gathered around the boys and Amanda.

“What’s the plan?” Marvin asked.

Bobby explained that it was very dark in the building, too dark to work on the Woodland Bell and they would have to try and get it outside in the sunlight.  Edward asked Bobby if they had any chains, and that they could hook them to the locomotive and He and Edmond and Elizabeth could pull the woodland bell out of the building.  Billy asked Edward if he really thought they could pull the huge locomotive, and laughing Edward told him that three elephants were equal to hundreds of horsepower.

In the back of the building they found long lengths of chains hanging on the wall, very heavy chains, so heavy that it took Brownie and Marvin to hook them to the locomotive.  Edward, Edmond and Elizabeth picked up the chains and started to pull, everyone stood there amazed as the huge locomotive slowly started to roll out of the building.  With what seemed like very little effort on their part the elephants easily pulled the Woodland Bell out into the sun light.  The Woodland Bell was covered with dust and dirt from being stored for so long.

Smiling Edmond told Bobby that what the Woodland Bell needed was a good bath and went to a near by stream and got a trunk full of water and sprayed it on the locomotive.  Edward and Elizabeth followed Edmonds lead and in no time the Woodland Bell sat shining in the sunlight with all the dirt and dust washed away.  Everyone went to work; Amanda and Bobby were polishing the brass bell and railings while Billy, The Professor and Digger worked on cleaning up the engine.   Digger got the dirty job of cleaning out the firebox.  

Billy didn’t know much about steam engines or how they worked and asked The Professor what the firebox was?  The Professor explained that a steam engine is like a big tea pot.  That a fire would be made in the firebox and would boil water into steam, and the steam would make the wheels turn.  Having that question answered Billy turned and pointing to a small strange looking train car connected to the back of the Woodland Bell asked “What’s that for, Professor?”

The Professor explained that it was called a tender and that it carried the wood for the firebox and the water to make the steam.  

“Oh,” Billy replied, “I guess it’s like the Woodland Bells’ gas tank.”

Smiling The Professor told him that was a good way to describe it.

The Woodland Bell was all cleaned up and ready to go, all that was needed now was fuel to get the steam engine going.  Edward was already working on that. Edward, being with the circus and knowing that the circus always traveled by train, knew that the locomotive was going to need plenty of wood to burn and lots of water to make steam.  Edward had Randy and Raymond cutting firewood while Brownie and Marvin loaded it into the tender.  It was Edmond and Elizabeth’s job to fill the tender with water.  

“What do you think?” asked Amanda. “Do you think it will run?”

“We’ll soon find out,” replied The Professor, as he waited for Brownie and Marvin to finish loading firewood into the firebox.

With the fire box full of wood The Professor lit the fire and as the wood started to burn Billy looked into the firebox.  He told The Professor that it looked like a big fireplace.  Smiling at Billy’s description of the firebox he closed the big iron door, and opened the water valve letting water into the stream engine.  Everyone could hear the engine making strange sounds that they never heard in the woodland before as the engine built up steam.  The Professor tapped the gauges and smiling he turned to Billy and told him it looks like they have steam.

“How do you know Professor?” he asked.

The Professor told him to pull the chain hanging from overhead twice and as Billy did the Woodland Bells’ whistle let out two very loud shrieks that scared everyone.  

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” The Professor said, as he told them to all step back from the Woodland Bell because hot steam would shoot out by the wheels as the locomotive started to move.  

“Are you ready to see if it runs?” The Professor asked Billy.

“I’m ready Professor, lets go,” was Billy’s answer to the question.

Smiling The Professor pointed to a red valve and told Billy to slowly pull it down.  As Billy did everyone could feel the Woodland Bell come alive as steam came out from the wheels as they slowly started to turn.  As everyone stood there cheering and clapping the huge locomotive slowly inched down the track.  The Woodland Bell slowly traveled down the track for about the length of a football field or about three hundred feet. 

The Professor then told Billy to close the red handled valve.  Billy closed the valve and the Woodland Bell slowly rolled to a stop.  Pointing to a large lever at Billy’s side The Professor told him to pull back on the lever, and slowly open the red valve again.  Setting the lever all the way back Billy slowly opened the red valve.  The Woodland Bell started to move; only this time it was going backwards.  Slowly the locomotive rolled back and Billy was thrilled that The Professor was showing him how to run the Woodland bell.  As the huge locomotive slowly entered the large storage building where it was kept, The Professor told Billy to slowly close the red valve.  As he did the Woodland Bell slowly rolled to a stop.  The sun was starting to set as The Professor and Billy climbed down from the Woodland Bell.  Billy was grinning from ear to ear as he walked up to Bobby and Amanda.

“Was it hard to run?” Bobby asked Billy.

“No,” Billy replied, “It was easy, and tomorrow The Professor is going to show you how to run it also.”

Everyone was smiling as The Professor walked up to them.

“You all did a wonderful job on fixing up the Woodland Bell,” he said.

He explained that it was getting too late to do anymore work on the train.  He told them that tomorrow they would start working on the passenger cars and assemble the whole train, so they could all get a ride on it.  Everyone was very excited knowing that they soon would get a chance to ride on the Woodland Bell.  The Professor told everyone it was time to go home and have dinner and get a good nights rest that they still had a lot of work to do on the train tomorrow.  Everyone said good night and started down the hill. Edmond walked up to the Professor.

“Come on Professor, I’ll give you a lift,” he said as he gently wrapped his trunk around The Professor and lifted him up on his back.

“Thank you very much,” the Professor replied as he settled down on Edmond’s back.

As everyone walked down the hill they talked about all the work that they had done and how excited they were when The Professor and Billy got the Woodland Bell to run. 

“We still have a lot of work to do,” Bobby explained, “we have to get all the passenger cars cleaned up and running.”

“Well if we all work as hard tomorrow as we did today we should be all done by tomorrow night,” Amanda added.  

When they reached the trail everyone said good night and went their separate ways, Billy and Bobby walked Amanda home, said good night and headed off toward their cabin.  When they got to their cabin on the front porch was a picnic basket with a note.  It was from Amanda’s mother. The note explained that she knew how hard they were working on the Woodland Bell, and that they might be too tired to cook dinner so she cooked it for them.  The boys were thrilled that they didn’t have to cook dinner and washed up and sat down to eat.  

“You know it was very nice of Mrs. Hare to cook us dinner,” Billy said.

“Yes it was and we must be sure to thank her tomorrow,” Bobby replied.  

The boys finished eating, cleaned up the kitchen and sat in the living room talking about what had to be done the next day, the hard days work finally started to catch up with them and they went to bed and quickly fell asleep.