I asked if we could stay overnight. Mom said maybe you would let us stay until she figures out what to do next. We saw your sign just before we had the accident.”

“Accident!” exclaimed Judy and Honey in one breath.

“Well, we were sort of shoved off the road,” Paul told them.

“They did it on purpose,” the little girl said. “Then they emptied out all our suitcases and went off with Mommy’s pocketbook.”

“Keep still about that, Penny!” the boy said severely. “We weren’t supposed to tell.”

“But she had the green doll—”

At this, the boy clapped his hand over his sister’s mouth with such violence that the child began to cry.

“You shouldn’t have done that. You’ve hurt her!” cried Honey.

“She talks too much,” was the boy’s brief explanation.

“I like little girls who talk too much,” Judy said, taking Penny to a more secluded part of the grove to comfort her and find out what the real trouble was.

“Paul didn’t mean it,” Penny defended her brother. “He’s just scared, and so is Mommy.”

“I should think she would be! Are you sure those men caused the accident on purpose to steal her pocketbook?”