“We can make it!” decided Mr. Bobbsey. “It won’t rain for ten minutes yet and we’ll be there before then.”
But they had no sooner gotten beyond the town than the first drops began splashing down, to the accompaniment of loud thunder and such glaring lightning as to make Flossie hide her head in the auto robes.
“It’s going to pour in another minute!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey. “I wish we had stayed in Hitchville!”
“Yes, it would have been better,” agreed her husband. They were on the main road now, but there was no shelter in sight until, as they made a turn, they saw just ahead of them a farmhouse and a large barn up a lane and near the road. The wide doors of the barn were open, and as there came a sudden burst of rain and a great crash of thunder, Mrs. Bobbsey suggested:
“Drive into that barn, Dick. Then we’ll be sheltered. Don’t try to go on to Cloverbank.”
“All right,” he replied, speaking loudly to be heard above the noise of the storm. “I guess that’s the best thing to do!”
He swung the auto off the road, into the lane, and up the inclined drive right into the open barn, much to the surprise of two men who were inside, having evidently gone there for shelter.
A moment later it seemed as if the sky were torn open to let down the rain which dashed around the barn in a fury, whipped by the high wind, while the lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled.
CHAPTER IX
AT CLOVERBANK