“I’m sure we never did, for I have never been on this road before,” answered Mr. Bobbsey.
The old woman looked at him sharply, then at Bert; and, as if satisfied that they were telling the truth, she said:
“Wa-all, all right. Come on and bring your blickie.”
“My blickie?” exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. “What’s that?”
“Your pail—your bucket—whatever you call it. I calls ’em blickies. That’s what I calls ’em—blickies,” said the old woman. “It’s Dutch—Pennsylvania Dutch,” she explained. “I’m Pennsylvania Dutch.”
“Oh,” murmured Mr. Bobbsey, making a side motion to Nan and Bert to tell them not to laugh.
The old woman shuffled along, leading the way down the weed- and vine-obstructed path until she pointed to a stone-lined hole in the ground, near a small shed.
“There’s the spring,” she said. “Help yourself. Fill your blickie,” and she motioned to the canvas pail in Mr. Bobbsey’s hand. “But it’s the queerest blickie I ever see. And don’t you bother my frog!” she warned.
Mr. Bobbsey and the children hardly knew whether or not to believe that there was a frog. But when Mr. Bobbsey leaned over the edge of the deep, clear spring, to fill the canvas pail, he saw, sitting on the bottom, in the clean, white sand, the largest frog he had ever beheld.
“Look, children!” he said. “It is a giant frog!”