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Once more Bunny shook his head.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Sue.
"But I guess Toby knows," said the little boy. "I'm going to let him take us home. Go on home, Toby!" he called, and let the reins lie loosely on the pony's back.
The Shetland looked around at the children in the cart, which he could easily do, having no "blinders" on the sides of his head. Blinders are almost as bad as check-reins for horses and ponies. Never have them on your pets, for a pony needs to see on the sides of him as well as in front.
Toby looked back at the cart and then he gave a little whinny.
"Oh, Bunny!" cried Sue, "what do you s'pose he looked at us that way for?"
"I guess he wanted to see if we had fallen out," said Bunny. "But we haven't. We're here, Toby!" he called to the pony. "Now take us home, please!"
Whether Toby understood or not, I cannot say. Probably the little pony was hungry, and he wanted to go on to his stable where the oats and hay were. Crackers and sugar might be all right, he may have thought, but he needed hay and oats for a real meal.
And perhaps he really did know the way home. Lots of horses do, they say, even on a dark night, so why shouldn't a pony in the day time? That's what Bunny and Sue thought.
Bunny never touched the reins. He let them rest loosely on Toby's back, and on the pony went. When he came to a hard, level road Toby began to trot. And pretty soon Sue cried:
"Oh, Bunny! Toby has found the way out! We're not lost any more!"
"How do you know?" asked Bunny.
"'Cause I can see Miss Hollyhock's house, and we both know the road home from there! See it!" and Sue pointed down the road.
Chapter XIV
Toby's Other Trick
Bunny Brown stood up in the pony cart and looked to where Sue pointed. Across a little green valley he could see another road, at one point was a small cottage, nestled among the trees, and with vines growing about it.
"Yes, that's where Miss Hollyhock lives," he said.
"And then we aren't lost any more, are we?" asked Sue.
"No, I guess not," Bunny said. "But we have to get on that other road."
This the children soon did, taking a highway that cut across the valley. Toby had taken them out of the woods on a new path, but it was just as good as the one they had driven on in going to the farm, though longer.
And in a little while they were going past the cottage where lived the elderly woman, known all around as "Old Miss Hollyhock." This was because so many of those flowers blossomed near her cottage.
"Well, my dears, where have you been?" she asked.
"Oh, we went to the farm to get some butter for mother," answered Bunny, "but we got lost."
"We're found now, though," went on Sue. "Now we know the way home."
"Are you sure?" asked Miss Hollyhock.
"Oh, yes," said Bunny. "We've been on this road lots of times."
"Well, trot along home then," said Miss Hollyhock. "If you've been lost you must have been away from home quite a long while, and your mother may be worried about you. Trot along home, pony!"
And Toby trotted along home with Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue.
Mrs. Brown, standing at the gate, and looking down the road, saw them coming.
"Where have you children been?" she asked, coming out to meet them. "I have been quite worried about you! Where were you?"
"We were lost, Mother!" answered Bunny.
"Lost? Couldn't you find your way to the farm?"
"Oh, yes," he answered. "But coming home we took the wrong road. But Toby found the right one for us."
"He's as good as Splash," added Sue. "Splash wanted to come with us, but Bunker took him to the woods. Oh, we had such a good time!"
"Even with getting lost?" asked Mrs. Brown, with a smile. She felt better, now that the children were safe at home.
"Oh, we weren't lost very long," explained Sue. "It was only a little while, and then Toby brought us home, but it was on a new road," and, taking turns, she and Bunny told what had happened.
"Well, I'll feel better about having you go out for rides, if I know that Toby can always bring you back," said Mrs. Brown. "But don't try too many new roads. Stick to the old paths that you know until you get a little older. Did you bring my butter?"
"Yes, here it is," and Bunny handed it out, nicely wrapped up as Mrs. Potter had given it to him.
"Has Splash come home yet?" Sue asked.
The dog had not. He was off in the woods having a good time with Bunker. At least he looked as though he had had a good time when he did come home, for he was covered with mud and water, and there were a lot of "stickery" briars and brambles on his back and legs.
"He ran into every bush and every puddle of water he could find," said Bunker Blue. "I couldn't stop him."
"Well, he can come with us next time," said Bunny. "It's only when we go to the farm, where the cross dog lives, that we can't take Splash."
The next day Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue were "playing house" in their side yard. They made a sort of tent under the trees with an old carriage cover they found in the barn, and Sue pretended she was the housekeeper.
"And you must come to call on me," she said to Bunny.
"All right, I will," he agreed. "But there isn't any door to knock on, nor any bell to ring when I call. You ought to have a bell to your house, Sue."
"That's so -- I ought," she agreed.
"I know how I can make one," went on Bunny, after a while.
"How?" asked Sue.
"Well, there's an old bell that the milkman used to have -- the milkman who kept his horse and wagon in our barn," explained the little boy. "The bell is in the barn now."