Road Song

S1, E22: The Partridge family and Reuben are eating in a seedy restaurant in New Mexico when a young girl, Maggie Newton, comes up to them and asks for a ride to Albuquerque. She tells them she is going to see her father who is an archeologist. After they leave, a patrolman enters the restaurant and asks the waitress if she has seen a young girl. The picture he shows her is of Maggie. When the bus arrives at a motel, Maggie says goodbye and goes on. The patrolman comes to the motel and tells Shirley he is looking for Maggie and when Shirley and Reuben find Maggie the next day, they ask her why the police are after her. She doesn't tell them the truth, but they learn from a sheriff in Kumquist, New Mexico, that Maggie is a runaway. She lives with her grandparents in Nebraska but runs away every other week to her father in Albuquerque. Shirley tells the sheriff that she will be responsible for getting Maggie together with her grandparents. She calls them and tells the grandfather to meet her at the airport in Albuquerque. But, Maggie has run away again, and after the family searches everywhere in the town, they find her hitchhiking. The Partridges take Maggie to her father, who says he will keep her this time and not let her grandfather take her back. When Shirley brings the grandfather to the house for a confrontation, there is a lot of tension, and Shirley is the one who settles the dispute. They reach an agreement: Maggie will stay with her grandparents while she is going to school and with her father during Christmas and summer holiday.