The pig-pen had only partly burned, and the barn, to the side of which it was built, was only scorched. Some one must have dropped a match in the straw of the pig-pen to start the blaze, it was said.
"Well, we'll nail a few boards back on the pen, and it will do to keep the pigs in until morning," said Mr. Blakeson, the farmer. "That is if we can get 'em collected again."
"My dogs will help," said Mr. Brown. "Here, Dix! Splash!" he called. "Drive the pigs up here!"
The two dogs, both of which were used to driving cows, soon collected the pigs, even in the dark, and once more they were in their pen, sniffing about for something to eat, now that the fire was out.
The farmer whose barn had been saved by the children's father was much interested in the big auto, and, a little later in the evening, went down to look at it, as did some of his neighbors.
"Well, that's a fine way of traveling about," said Mr. Blakeson, and his friends agreed with him.
The next morning, while Bunny, Sue and the others were at breakfast, talking about the fire of the night before, a number of children came down the road to see the big machine. All the dirt from the flood had been washed off, and as it had been newly painted before this tour started, the "Ark," as the Browns sometimes called their big car, looked very nice indeed.
The country children had seldom, if ever, seen so big an automobile as this, nor one in which a family could live as they traveled. There were many "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" as they walked about it.
"Let's ask 'em in and show 'em our bunks," proposed Bunny, and his mother said he might. The children were even more surprised at the inside of the "Ark" than at the outside.
"Oh, wouldn't I love to live in this!" sighed a little girl with red hair. "It's just like Mother Goose or a fairy story."