"I couldn't, either!" exclaimed Joan. "Must I?"
Granny did not insist, and after she was tucked under the silken comforter Rebecca Mary and Joan went down the stairs hand in hand. They ran through the open door and found a surprise on the other side, a surprise over six feet long.
"Hello!" exclaimed the surprise, all a-grin.
"Hello!" replied Rebecca Mary somewhat feebly, and then she laughed for the surprise was young Peter Simmons. If Rebecca Mary's fingers had not been in her pocket with the four-leaf clover locket she would not have believed her two gray eyes. "Then it wasn't a dream!" she said triumphantly.
"Wasn't it?" Peter looked at Rebecca Mary as she stood before him in her crumpled white frock and pink sweater. Peter never saw that the frock was crumpled. He only saw the two shining gray eyes, the smiling red mouth and the two pink cheeks which helped to make Rebecca Mary's radiant face.
"I told Granny that you found us last night and she said I was dreaming," she explained more soberly. "Have you come to rescue us again?" It would be so romantic if the four-leaf clover had sent young Peter Simmons to their rescue a second time.
"Rescue you?" He looked puzzled, for Rebecca Mary did not look as if she were in any danger as she stood there in front of the door. "I want to apologize for leaving you in the old shed," he went on. "It started to rain just before we turned in here last night and the shed was the nearest place. Yes, I picked you up, it wasn't any dream. Granny was wrong. I had received a hurry up call to come out at once and was on my way in my little gas wagon with a man from the factory when at the cross roads, a mile and half back, I came across two women and a half——"
"Was the half me?" demanded Joan, dancing up and down. "Do you mean me when you say half a woman?"
"I certainly do," smiled Peter. "One woman and a half were sound asleep and the other woman was just about asleep. The cross roads didn't seem the safest place for a nap so I left my machine to the mechanic and took the wheel of yours. I didn't dare take you to the house until I spoke to old Martingale but when I met him he wouldn't listen to my story but marched me off to the shop for a minute. The minute grew into sixty before I could get away, and when I went back to the shed you had gone. How is Granny? The idea of a child of her age going to sleep in a motor car thirty miles from home. Any one could have come along and carried you off!" It almost sounded as if Peter was scolding them.