CHAPTER IIICALLED HOME

CHAPTER IIICALLED HOME

“Let me do it, Doro,” cried Tavia. “It won’t do any good for you to sit there trembling like a leaf!”

She held out her hand for the telegram, but for answer Dorothy quickly tore open the envelope.

“It is from Ned,” she cried, as Tavia looked over her shoulder. “He says Joe has not been found and there has been no word from him. Oh, I can’t bear it any longer,” she cried desperately. “WhatshallI do?”

Tavia put an arm about her chum again, but, as though the contact had galvanized her to action, Dorothy rose swiftly to her feet.

“I must go home at once,” she cried, turning toward the front door. “I will go in and pack my bag if you will ’phone for a taxi, Nat.”

Tavia caught hold of her skirt, holding her back.

“But what good will it do you to go to North Birchlands, Doro?” pleaded the latter, unwilling to have Dorothy’s visit so rudely interrupted.“You can keep in constant touch with North Birchlands by telephone and telegraph.”

“But—don’t you see—I must be there, right on the spot!” cried Dorothy, shaking off Tavia’s detaining hand. “Please don’t stop me, Tavia. I hate to go, but it isn’t my fault. Will you tell that taxi man to hurry, Nat?”

Nat promised, and in a few minutes Dorothy, hatted and cloaked and bag in hand, returned to the porch, ready to go. What was her surprise then, to find Tavia there before her. And Tavia also carried a bag!

“Wh-where are you going?” stammered Dorothy, and Tavia chuckled.

“With you, you ridiculous Doro,” she said. “Do you suppose for a moment I would let you go without me?”

“But your mother——”

“Oh, Ma will let me do anything I want to,” retorted Tavia, with a careless shrug of her shoulders. “She is lying down, so I didn’t even ask her. Just left a note pinned to the pincushion. When she sees that she will think for sure I have eloped.”

Dorothy hesitated, a tiny frown on her forehead. She could never become quite accustomed to the queerness of the Travers household. Everything in her own home had always been so orderly and comfortable and normal.

But with Tavia it was different, had always been different, and probably always would be different. For Tavia’s mother was extravagant, lazy, and often actually untidy. Tavia, left to the guidance of her mother, might have had a hard time of it.

But Mr. Travers was different, and though he had never made a great success of himself financially, he was genial, good-tempered and lovable. In fact, Dorothy had often, without wishing to be unfair in the least, attributed Tavia’s good traits to her father.

But now this action of Tavia’s leaving home at a moment’s notice to return for an indefinite stay at North Birchlands with only a scrawled note pinned hastily to a pincushion to announce her intention, seemed all wrong.

“But I want to say good-bye to your mother and tell her how sorry I am that I have to cut my visit short,” she protested.

Tavia shot her a laughing glance that was still shrewd and far-seeing.

“She wouldn’t thank you for it, Doro, my dear,” she said, with a hint of sadness underlying the light words. “Ma never allows any one to interrupt her afternoon siesta. Anyway,” she added, dismissing the subject as a taxicab rolled up to the door, “I left word about you in the note—said you left regrets and all thatsort of thing. Come on, Doro, make it snappy.”

Dorothy sighed as she handed her grip to Nat and slowly followed the flyaway Tavia to the cab. There were times when she wished Tavia would not use so much slang and always be in such a tremendous hurry. It wore on one’s nerves occasionally.

Once in the cab Dorothy sank back in a corner while Nat and Tavia conversed in low tones. She was thinking of Joe and what must be her first action upon reaching The Cedars.

She would go down town, of course, to inspect Haskell’s store, or what remained of it. She would talk to people in the neighborhood and find out if any one had seen Joe in that vicinity at the time of the fire.

But surely no one could have seen him! Joe could have had nothing to do with that catastrophe! Dorothy thrust the horrid thought from her mind, only to have it return again with the question: Then how explain Joe’s mysterious disappearance, and just at that time, too?

Perhaps the boy had been hurt. Perhaps they had taken him to a hospital where they had been unable to identify him.

She spoke this thought aloud, and Nat immediately put her fears to rest, on that score at least.

“The first thing the Major did was to ’phonethe North Birchlands Hospital and two or three others in the vicinity,” he said. “They had brought in no one remotely answering Joe’s description.”

“Then where is he?” cried Dorothy desperately.

It was just as well that they reached the station at that moment and that they were forced to run for the train. The hustle and excitement served temporarily to divert Dorothy’s mind from her trouble.

Tavia kept up a lively chatter for the major part of the train trip to North Birchlands so that Dorothy had little time to indulge her unhappy thoughts.

It was only when they entered the living room of The Cedars and faced the Major and Mrs. White that Dorothy felt the full gravity of the situation.

She kissed her Aunt Winnie on the cheek and then went over to her father, kneeled down beside him and took his hand between her own.

Tavia’s eyes softened as she took in the tableau, and with a significant gesture she turned to Nat. The two left the room and Mrs. White softly followed them. Father and daughter were left alone.

“You haven’t heard anything, Daddy?” asked Dorothy, anxious eyes upon her father’s face.It seemed to her that the Major looked strangely old and haggard.

Major Dale shook his head. He had brightened at sight of his daughter, but at the mention of Joe his face clouded heavily again.

“I don’t understand it, Dot,” he replied. “Joe was always such a straightforward, dependable lad, despite the little pranks he was always playing. Wouldn’t be a boy if he didn’t have some mischief in him. But a good boy at that—a good boy——” His voice trailed off and his eyes sought the window restlessly.

Dorothy became truly alarmed. Her father was ill, she could see that—although the Major would be the last man to admit such a thing. His health had not been robust for some time and now the shock of this thing had been too much for him.

With an effort Dorothy pulled herself together and spoke encouragingly.

“Of course he’s a good boy, the best in the world,” she said. “Wherever he has gone, we can be sure it isn’t very far. We will have him back in a day or two. You just watch and see!”

The Major smiled and rested his hand for a moment on Dorothy’s bright hair.

“I hope so, Dorothy,” he said, adding with an unconscious wistfulness that touched Dorothy deeply: “Everything seems more hopeful nowthat we have you back, my dear. I can’t seem to do without my little daughter any more.”

“You won’t have to do without me ever, Daddy dear,” said Dorothy, and there were tears in her eyes and in her voice. Then, fearing that she had betrayed her anxiety over his changed appearance, she went on in her ordinary tone: “Don’t you think you could snatch a little rest, dear? I imagine you haven’t been sleeping very well lately.”

Major Dale stirred impatiently and again his restless glance sought the window.

“I don’t want to sleep,” he said on a querulous note that Dorothy had never heard before. “I won’t close my eyes again until we have found that boy.”

With a heavy heart Dorothy left the room and went in search of Roger, the youngest of the family and Joe’s shadow. The two boys were almost always together, for Roger worshiped his older brother and followed unquestioningly wherever he led.

Roger was in Joe’s abandoned room staring moodily out the window, and when he saw Dorothy he flung his arms about her neck and wept wildly despite a manful effort to control his grief.

Dorothy patted his small shoulder and waited until he shamefacedly wiped away the tears with a grubby hand, leaving a track of dirt from thecorner of one blue eye to the opposite corner of his still-tremulous mouth.

Then she drew the lad down on Joe’s bed and gently questioned him.

“Joe wouldn’t let me go downtown with him that last day,” said the little lad, his lip trembling as if with an old grievance. “He said he was going to meet Jack Popella——”

“Jack Popella! That boy!” cried Dorothy, springing to her feet. “Oh, Roger, are you sure?”

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