There was no use of waiting around on this lonely road any longer, so Neale got in and started the car again. As they had got off their original route some distance in coming to this farm, it would be impossible to make a good hotel that night.
“But,” as Mrs. Heard said, “we have nothing to fear after that lodging in Frog Hollow——”
“Arbutusville, Mrs. Heard—do!” laughed Agnes, in correction.
“Well. That woman had the hardest beds I ever saw. If the street pavements had been as hard they would certainly have had good roads in that town.”
They stopped at a countryside store for lunch and bought crackers and cheese and milk, and feasted while sitting in the automobile under the shade of a great elm.
“We’re almost like Gypsies ourselves,” said Tess, ruminating as she crunched the crackers and cheese. “Aren’t we, Dot?”
“No. We’re cleaner,” said the smallest Corner House girl; “and we haven’t any little goaties—and pigs! But this is lots of fun, just the same; and I wish we could sleep out again all night—just for once—all of us, of course.”
She came near having her wish that very night, or so it seemed when sunset came. In some way they got off the marked route they had been following, and, on stopping at a crossroads to ask a blacksmith who was just closing his shop, they found that they were far away from the beaten track of automobile tourists.
“We might have known that,” grumbled Ruth, “from the state of the roads.”
“The worst of it is,” said Mrs. Heard, a little worried, “it is going to be hard on the children. They are tired out now. And it is a dark night.”