The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair | Page 5

Now it was summer again, and one of the first delights of that season
was the Sunday school picnic which had started off so well but which
seemed likely now to end in an accident.
It was too bad that one truck should have gotten safely over the bridge,
and that the other had to break through. The second truck was heavier

than the first. The first may have cracked the bridge beams and the
second one broken them.
"Careful now, children, careful!" warned Mr. Blake. "Don't jump down!
Come to the end of the truck and I'll lift you down!"
"And as soon as you are down walk to the other side of the bridge;
don't run--walk!" ordered the driver.
Bert remembered that it said this on the programs of the moving picture
theaters, and he decided it was good advice.
One by one the children made their way up the sloping floor of the
truck to the tailboard, and there Mr. Blake, Mrs. Simpson, and other
men and women helped the little ones down.
"Oh, I feel like fainting!" sighed Grace.
"Don't be silly!" exclaimed Nan. "Nothing is going to happen!"
It was a good thing Nan felt this way, though, as a matter of fact,
something dreadful might happen at any moment. If the cracked beams
of the bridge should break all the way through, the auto would slide
down into the water. And, though the creek was not very deep, still
many would be hurt in the crash.
The Bobbsey twins, being nearest the rear of the auto, were among the
first off. They did what the driver told them--walked quietly off the
bridge.
At the farther end they joined the picnic party that had gotten off the
first truck. And there, almost breathless, they watched the work of
rescue going on.
One by one little boys and girls were lifted down off the truck, and then,
when the last had reached safely the far shore, Mr. Blake, Mrs.
Simpson, and the other men and women made their way carefully to
land.

"Aren't you coming?" asked Mr. Blake of the truck driver, for the man
was still close to his big car, looking at it and the sagging floor of the
bridge.
"I want to see if I can get this truck off," he answered. "The machine
isn't damaged any--it's only the bridge. I guess the load was too heavy
for it."
"I heard it cracking as I went over," called the driver of the first truck.
"I shouted a warning to you, but it was too late."
"Yes, it was too late to save the bridge, but maybe I can get my truck
off," the other driver went on. "Anyhow, none of the children is hurt."
And this was so--something for which the Sunday school officers were
very glad, indeed.
"If we had some pieces of wood to put under the bridge, to brace it up,
maybe you could get the truck over," said the driver of the big auto that
was safe on the far shore.
"Why don't you take fence rails?" asked Bert, who felt better, now that
his sisters and brother were all right.
"Yes, we could do that," agreed the driver of the second auto. "Come
on--give me a hand!" he called to his companion.
The two men worked away for a time, and braced up the bridge so that
the auto could be driven carefully over it, though it was not easy to get
it up the hill made when the bridge had sunk into the shape of the letter
V.
But finally the empty second truck was safe on the other side of the
stream, near the first one, and rails were put across the road to warn
other vehicles not to try to cross the bridge. It was safe enough for a
person to walk across, but it would not hold up an auto or a horse and
wagon.

"We may as well go on to the picnic grounds," said Mr. Blake, when
the smaller, frightened children had gotten over their crying.
"How we going to get home again if we can't cross the bridge?" asked
Flossie, looking at the sagging structure.
"Oh, there's another bridge over the creek, about two miles down," the
driver of the second truck said. "That will be all right."
Soon the children and grown folks were on the autos again, and moving
toward the picnic grounds. This time there was not so much merry
laughter and singing, for all felt that there had been a narrow escape
from a terrible accident.
But gloom does not long remain with a party of jolly boys and girls,
and by the time they alighted at Pine Grove each one was in high spirits
again.
There were plenty of