After a while Sue thought her Teddy bear had had enough sleep near the auto door, so she went to take her in. But when she reached the rag bed Sallie Malinda was not there.
"Oh, my Teddy bear is gone!" cried Sue. "Oh, Bunny, do you think she falled out? Daddy! Daddy! Stop the auto! My Teddy bear is lost!"
Mr. Brown stopped the car at once, though he did not understand all of what Sue said. The little girl told him what had happened.
"Sallie Malinda gone!" cried Mother Brown. "That's too bad! She must have been jostled off when the auto went over a bump. I think we'll have to go back and look for her," she said to her husband.
Then Bunny gave some more news.
"Dix is gone too!" he cried. "I've been watching a long while and I haven't seen him. And Splash is acting awful funny—just as if Dix had run away."
"Hum! This is rather strange!" exclaimed Mr. Brown. "Two disappearances at once."
"What's disappearcesses?" asked Sue.
"It means going away—the word your father used does," explained Mrs. Brown with a smile. "But it certainly is strange that Dix and the Teddy bear should go away together."