Page:Poor Cecco - 1925.djvu/123

Rh there to mark the different points of their journey, and certainly no one but Poor Cecco himself could have explained it.

“First,” he said, “we came down a road, and here is the bridge, and the old man, and those pebbles are the ducks—there ought to be more of them, but never mind—and that twisty line is the river. And then we crossed a field, only I can’t make that very well because it was all dark, but somewhere there is the little dog’s cottage, and this is the ash-heap country, and that white stone is Jensina. And here is where the rats attacked us, and then we went back to the road again. Stop a minute—I must put the road further over; there isn’t room. And then we took the automobile.”

Ah, the automobile! That was the real trouble. No one knew which way the automobile had gone. For one thing, they were half asleep most of the way. Certainly the automobile mixed everything up. If it hadn’t been for that, Poor Cecco was quite sure his map would have come out all right.

“Let’s leave the automobile out,” suggested Bulka.

“We can’t,” said Poor Cecco. “The automobile must gave gone this way.” And he traced another line.

“But it would have gone straight into the long grass!” Bulka objected.

“Don’t be silly!” said Poor Cecco. “Can’t you see it’s only a map? The question is, where are we now?”