Describe the children’s behavior at the beginning of the trip. Name some things that they were doing that annoyed the bachelor.

One hot day, a woman rides the train with three young children - her two nieces and nephew. A man is also in the train car. The children are rambunctious, and though the prim woman tries to control them, they refuse to sit still and quiet down. The children are especially fond of asking questions beginning with "Why?" (2). The aunt does not have good answers to these questions, which both she and the children see. The man in the train car is annoyed by the children and scowls at all of them. In return, the aunt decides that he is a "mean, unfriendly man" (2). The younger of the two girls begins to recite the same line of a poem over and over loudly, annoying the man further.