“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, Daddy, we’ve forgotten Splash!” wailed Bunny.

“We’ve left him behind,” chattered Sue.  “I saw him and Dix—­that’s Fred Ward’s dog—­playing together, and I thought of course Splash would come with us.  I forgot, and left one of the funny clown dresses for Sallie Malinda up in my room, so I went to get it, and then Splash and Dix were away down at the end of the yard and I didn’t think any more about our dog.”

“I didn’t either,” said Bunny.  “But he always has come with us and I thought he would this time.”

“Are you sure he isn’t somewhere in the auto, under one of the cots asleep?” asked Mr. Brown.

“I’ll look,” said Uncle Tad, and he did, but without finding Splash.

“I forgot all about him,” admitted Mrs. Brown, and her husband said the same thing.

“Well, what are we going to do?” asked Mr. Brown, as soon as every one was satisfied that the dog was not in the big auto-van.

“Do?  Why, we’ve got to go back after him, of course!” cried Bunny.

“We couldn’t go without Splash,” announced Sue.  “He’d be so lonesome for us that he’d cry, and then he’d start out to find us and maybe get lost and we’d never find him again.  Go back after him, Daddy!  It isn’t very far.”

“All right,” said good-natured Mr. Brown.  “I’m glad we’re not in a hurry.  Still I’d like to keep going, now that we’ve started.  But please, all of you, make sure nothing else is forgotten.  For we don’t want to go back another time.  All ready to turn around and march backward,” and he backed the big automobile at a wide place in the road, for it needed plenty of room in which to turn.

Slowly the big car made its way back to the Brown home.  Mary, the cook, was the first to see it, and, running to the door, she cried: 

“Oh, whatever you do, come in and sit down if only for a minute, some of you!  Oh, do come in and sit down!”

“What for, Mary?” asked Mrs. Brown.  “Has anything happened?”

“No, but ‘tis easy to see you’ve forgotten somethin’; and when that happens if you don’t sit down, or turn your dress wrong side out, bad luck is sure to foller you when you start off again.  So come in and sit down, as that’s easier than turning a dress.”

“Oh, let me turn my knickerbockers outside in!” cried Bunny.  “That will be as good as you or Sue, Momsie, turning your dresses.  It’s easy for me.  Then I can make-believe I’m a tramp, and I’ll run on ahead and beg for some bread and butter for my starving family,” and he imitated, in such a funny way, the whine of some of the tramps who called at the Brown kitchen door, that his mother laughed and Sue said: 

“Oh, Momsie, let me turn my dress wrong-side out, too, and I can play tramp with Bunny.  That will be fun!”

“No, you mustn’t do that,” said Mrs. Brown.  “While we’re hunting for Splash—­who isn’t in sight.  Where can he be?—­we’ll go in and sit down a moment to please Mary.”