He stopped the car and Twaddles obediently jumped out and ran back to the place where he had dropped the handkerchief. When he had had plenty of time to return, and didn't appear, Bobby stood up in the car to look.
"He's fussing with something," he announced. "He's got a stick and is poking something. I'd better go and get him, hadn't I, Daddy?"
"The child has probably found a garden snake or a frog," said Mother Blossom, who knew her children thoroughly, as her next remark proved. "If Bobby goes after Twaddles they will play with it until dark. Let Meg go. Tell Twaddles, dear, that he is to come immediately. And don't let him forget the handkerchief."
Meg ran all the way to where Twaddles sat on a stone blissfully engrossed with something in the roadway.
"Mother says to come this minute," she commanded. "What you got,
Twaddles?"
"There! you've scared it," said Twaddles regretfully. "It was a dear little snake. All right, I'm coming. I was all ready to start when you came."
After this delay the trip went smoothly, and Father Blossom declared that he was pleased with the new car. They reached the broad, level lake road and drove for several miles along it until Mother Blossom said that if they were not to keep Norah's supper waiting, they must turn back.
"Want to get out, Meg?" Father Blossom asked his little daughter gently.
Meg was always afraid when it was necessary to turn a car. She usually got out when Sam Layton, the Blossom's former chauffeur, backed their car or found a turn necessary. Now, however, she shook her head. Meg was learning, too.
Father Blossom carefully swung the heavy car around and was ready to send it ahead toward home when suddenly the wheel seemed to take matters into its own hand—if a steering wheel can do such a thing. Anyway, with a sudden lurch and a bound the car plunged directly into a heavy screen of brushwood that bordered one side of the road!