Bobby and the Big Road  by Maud Lindsay

The Way Home

O NE afternoon Bobby went to play in the wood beyond the little brown house.

The wood was full of things that Bobby liked,—blue and white violets, tall Indian pinks, and soft green moss. He found a gay bird's feather for his cap, an empty snail-shell by a little path, and a piece of birch-bark under a birch-tree.

His hands and his pockets, too, were soon filled with treasures to take home with him.

But which was the way home? Was it through the thunderberry-bushes and tall green trees on this side, or was it through the tall green trees and thunderberry-bushes on that side? Bobby went first one way and then the other, but no matter how he turned he could not see the little brown house.

It was getting late, too. The katydids were already beginning their "Katy did" and "Katy, didn't." Bobby did not like to hear them at all; not when he was in the wood by himself and could not find the way home.

"Father! Mother!" he called, but no one answered.

"Father! Mother!" he called.

It really was enough to make a little boy cry, and to tell the truth there were two big tears in Bobby's eyes. They were just about to roll down his cheeks when all at once he came to a road that wound through the wood like a white sash-ribbon.

"Why it is the Big Road!" said Bobby, speaking out loud in his surprise. Yes, and there by the side of the road was the great log where he and Mother and Father had waited for the grey squirrel, and there was the grey squirrel himself scampering through the bushes. And when Bobby had followed the road from the wood the first thing he spied was the locust-tree that he and Mother and Father had seen when they went for their walk.

There was no doubt about the way home then, and a smiling little boy went running down the road. He did not stop to take breath till he was home again.

Mother and Father were out watching for him, and they were as glad as he when the Big Road brought him back to them.

And it was wonderful how pleasant the katydids sounded to Bobby when he was safe at home.