Bobby and the Big Road  by Maud Lindsay

The Ride

B OBBY did not have to wait long for his second wish to come true, for the very next week he heard the honk-honk of an automobile horn and Florence's car stopped at the gate. Florence and her father and mother, and a baby brother who had one tooth, and a jolly chauffeur were in the car. They had come to take Bobby for a ride.

Mother and Father were glad to have Bobby go, and in less time than it takes to tell it, he was riding away.

The automobile went so fast that before Bobby could tell Florence half the things he knew about the road, they had reached places that he had never seen before!

They came to a clear shining creek with a stone bridge across it; and beyond that a big farmhouse with fields of waving corn on either side. And by and by they passed a meadow where red cows and white cows were feeding on the green grass. Florence's papa said they belonged to the milkman who brought milk to town every day.

"Why, I know him!" said Bobby in surprise, when he heard this.

Still farther on they came to a little log cabin by the road. Bright-colored flowers grew in the dooryard, and on the doorstone sat a little lame boy playing on a French harp.

"It's Johnny! I know it is Johnny! Please stop,—please stop," said Bobby.

The chauffeur stopped the car as quickly as he could and Bobby jumped out and ran back to the cabin.

"I'm Bobby," he called to the little lame boy. "You sent me a bantie egg."

"I've got the picture-book yet," said Johnny in great excitement; and it would have been hard to tell which was the better pleased to see the other, Bobby or Johnny. By this time Florence's papa had come back to see what was the matter; and when he heard what good friends Bobby and Johnny were, he asked the ox-wagon man's wife to let Johnny go for a ride, too.