CHAPTER XIII.FOUND.
“OH, now,” cried King joyfully, “I can go and play with Elyot and Barby!” He sprang up, and began to skip to the door.
“Oh, no, dear!” said Phronsie gently; “you had three words spelled badly, you know. That column must be right, and then you can go.”
“O sister Phronsie!” King began to whine. And then he grumbled, “I wish there weren’t any lessons in the world. I just hate ’em, I do.”
Joel thrust his head in the doorway. “May I come in?” he asked Phronsie.
“Yes, indeed,” she said with a smile.
“Well, well, King,” he said, going over to the little desk, and laying his hand on it, “do you know I said just those words you’ve used, once to Mamsie; and I wish I could forget it.”
“You said you hated books!” repeated Kingin amazement, and forgetting to cry, a thing he had just made up his mind to do. “Why, you know just everything.”
“Not quite that,” said Joel, bursting into a laugh; “but I know considerably more because of what Mamsie said to me then.”
“And what did Mamsie say?” asked King, intensely interested, and leaning across his little desk.
“She said study didn’t amount to much unless one was glad of the chance, and that she would stick to it if she had to work herself to skin and bone. I tell you, King, that just about killed me for Mamsie to have to tell me that.”
King drew a long breath. “Do you s’pose she’d have to say so to me, if she was here now?” he asked presently.
“I verily do,” said Joel, with a keen glance out of his black eyes that looked so very like his mother’s, that King quailed immediately. “I’ll—I’ll study, brother Joel,” he said, reaching for the neglected spelling-book.
Joel gave him a pat on his stubby head. “Good for you,” he said.
Outside, Alexia was saying to Amy Lougheadin the hall, “Oh! no use to try to get a squint at Phronsie in the morning till ten o’clock.”
“What is she doing?” asked Amy.
“Oh! she hears King’s lessons for an hour, and studies with him; he’s her care, you know, while Mrs. Fisher is away. But she might slip off a few minutes once in a while, and he’d study by himself. But horses can’t drag her away till the hour is up.”
“No,” said Amy slowly, “I shouldn’t think they could.”
“Umph!” said Alexia, remembering Polly’s frightful trials with her little music-scholar. Then she added kindly, “Oh! of course not; but we do want her just awfully this morning. We’re going to have a driving-party down to the Glen; and of course no one can do anything without Phronsie.”
“Oh! of course not,” said Amy.
“Well, it won’t make that tiresome clock go ahead any faster,” observed Alexia, “to watch it,” tearing off her gaze from the tall clock in an angle of the hall, “so I’m going off to find Cathie.”
Amy sat down in a niche by the window, andbusied herself with a little book she drew out of her pocket. How long she read she did not know, but King rushed past in a whirlwind of delight. “Phronsie said I could go! Hooray!” and Phronsie came out into the hall, followed by Joel.
“Now,” said Phronsie, “we must hurry and get up the Glen driving-party. Joel, please see that Johnson understands that the horses are brought around for those who are to ride. And, O Joel! please see that the drag is ready, and my cart.”
“Oh, yes! and the trap, and the whole list of them. You ride Firefly, Phronsie, of course; and I’m going to take one of the black horses, Polly said I could, and ride with you.”
“No,” said Phronsie; “Grace Tupper is to ride Firefly.”
“Oh, no, Phron!” protested Joel.
“I asked her to,” said Phronsie. “She used to ride a good deal, and she hasn’t had a chance for a long while. I want her to, Joel.”
“Any other time would do just as well,” began Joel. But Phronsie looked at him, and he hastened to add, “But of course it’s just as you please. Well, then, I shall drive you.”
“Yes, so you may,” cried Phronsie, well pleased, “and Amy too. Take us both, Joel, do.” She put her arm around the young girl affectionately.
Joel suppressed what he felt, and said, “All right,” and was just rushing out, when in ran King.
“Phronsie, where are Elyot and Barby?”
“Just over the east terrace,” said Phronsie. “I saw them a little while ago when you were at your lesson.”
“Well, they aren’t there now,” declared King in an injured tone. “Now, I know they meant to run away from me.”
“Oh, no, King dear!” said Phronsie, putting a gentle hand on his hot face.
“Well, where are they, then?” demanded King wrathfully.
“I’ll go and hunt for them,” said Phronsie merrily. “Come, Amy, let us find those babies.”
So Amy Loughead and Phronsie picked up their skirts and sped over the terraces, King racing on ahead, all three calling, “Bar-by! Ely-ot!” at the top of their voices.
“There, they aren’t here, you can see for yourself,”said King, turning a hot and flushed face upon them after a while.
“No,” said Phronsie, the pink color deserting her cheek, “I see they are not, King.” Then, as he began to look frightened, she brightened up, and said cheerily, “Do you run up to the house, Amy dear, and get the horn from Mrs. Higby; then, King, you shall blow it, and that’ll surely bring them back.”
“I’m going to get brother Joel first,” cried King, scampering off in the direction of the stables.
“And tell him to set Patsy to hunting on the grounds,” called Phronsie after him.
But despite the vigorous horn-blowing presently set up, King puffing out his cheeks with all his might, and Patsy and two or three of the other stable-men scouring the grounds, headed by Joel; and notwithstanding that Phronsie and Amy ran hither and thither spreading the alarm, till Polly and nearly all the guests in the house were just so many searching-parties, exploring the little brown house and every other place that would be likely to attract the children, no trace of the two children could be found. And King threw himselfdisconsolately into Phronsie’s arms, crying as if his heart would break.
Miss Salisbury was up on the front veranda; she so far forgot herself as to wring her hands, when she thought no one observed her.
“O Miss Salisbury!” cried Amy Loughead, running up, “will you be so very good as to tell Aunt Montgomery that I’m going down the road to hunt for the children. I may not be back, you know, for some time.”
“Hey, what’s that?” cried Robert Bingley, sauntering along the side veranda. He was waiting for the assembling of the driving-party, and hadn’t heard a word of the bad news.
“The two children are lost,” said Amy briefly, before she ran off.
“Great Cæsar’s ghost!” cried Robert Bingley. “Excuse me, Miss Salisbury,” as he now saw her; and clearing the veranda railing with one bound, he struck off for the group on the lawn. Just below lay the deserted mud-pies and the two little trowels.
Meantime Amy, gathering up her skirts with one shaking hand, skipped down the road, only one feeling uppermost in her heart,—to findPolly’s children. “I must, or I shall die,” sobbed Amy to herself, the tears splashing over her pretty blue lawn gown.
An old scissors-grinder came down the road, ringing his bell violently. “Oh, sir!” cried Amy, rushing up at him, “have you seen two little children, a boy and a girl? they’re lost, and we don’t know where to find them.” She wrung her hands now, and cried all over her dress.
“Hey?” cried the scissors-grinder.
“Oh! please, sir, do tell me if you have seen them,” begged Amy.
“I’m deef,” said the scissors-grinder, “and I don’t know what you’re saying, Miss;” and he put his hand behind his ear, and opened his mouth, as if in that way his hearing might be improved. So Amy got up on tiptoe, and shouted it all into his ear; and he shook his head, and declared he hadn’t seen a child on the road that morning, and he had just come from Badgertown Centre.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “I’ll ring my bell, and then I’ll cry, ‘Child lost’—no, ‘two children lo-ost,’ and then everybody’ll know it, and look out for ’em.” So he went on, ringingand jingling, and calling it out, while she flew down along the road.
“There isn’t any use in your doing this,” said a voice back of her as she sped along; and Robert Bingley dashed up in a dog-cart. “Here, Miss Loughead, jump in, and we’ll search for those two kids together.”
“They’re Polly’s children,” announced Amy, as if stating a wholly new fact, and turning her sorrowful face, down which the tears were chasing, to him; “and it will just kill her, Mr. Bingley, if they’re not found.”
“Jump in,” said Mr. Bingley, extending his hand to help her; “excuse my not getting out, but this horse is bound to go. There, now,” as she was seated, “which way, of all the ways in the universe, would those children be likely to take—that’s the question. Then I should take the other.”
“The scissors-man said he hadn’t seen a child on this road; and he has just come from Badgertown,” said Amy.
“I saw you interviewing him,” said Robert Bingley. “Well, as that remarkably stupid individual did give utterance to that fact, I shouldstate my private opinion to be that those children took this very road. He’s too stupid to know a child when he sees it.”
“Mr. Bingley,” cried Amy, all the color deserting her cheek, and in her sudden terror she seized his arm, “oh, I’ve just thought—there’s the pond, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” said Bingley, distressed at her fright, but outwardly as cool as ice.
“Why, Spot Pond, they call it,” said Amy with a little gasp. “Phronsie was telling me about it—what a pretty place it was, and how they would take me fishing there, and”—
“Were the children about so that they heard you?” he asked abruptly.
“Yes—no, I believe not,” she said, racking her brain to remember; “but they may have gone there just the same.”
“Where is it, do you know?” asked Bingley, slackening speed a little.
“It’s on this road. After you get by the schoolhouse, then turn to the right—that is, it’s just a little off the road,” said Amy; “she told me all about it at the breakfast-table. O Mr. Bingley, do let us go there!”
“There’s the schoolhouse,” said Bingley, spying it a little distance away; “so as the pond is a short bit away, we better try it, instead of going home for assistance.” He gave the whip to the pony, and off they spun.
But Spot Pond was still and lovely and serene. Not a ripple disturbed its clear surface, and only a cat-bird screamed at them overhead.
“They couldn’t have walked clear down here by this time,” said Robert Bingley; “besides, there are no little boot-tracks anywhere.” Amy clasped her hands tightly together.
“Now I shall interview the schoolmarm,” said Robert Bingley, driving back; and rapping on the schoolhouse door, he brought out the teacher, book in hand, and a fringe of scholars, older and younger, around her.
“No,” she said to his question; “we haven’t any of us seen any little children. Have you,” turning to some big boys who sat by the window, “seen any go by?”
“No’m,” they said; and Bingley, feeling sure that nothing could have escaped a boy at such a vantage-ground, set his teeth together hard, and turned irresolutely.
Amy Loughead now sat up quite straight. “Oh! I can’t go home, Mr. Bingley,” she said, “and see Polly, and not take the children to her. Please take me into the town, and I’ll ask everybody there, in all the shops, and along the streets and houses. Somebody must know.”
“Not a bad idea,” said Robert Bingley, whipping up, “and at least your plan has action in it; and I confess myself that I don’t want to go home either without something to show for it.”
It was well past midday when Amy, who had asked at every farmhouse and each smarter residence within the village itself, now began to traverse the High Street, where all the shops were crowded together as a trading centre. Bingley had begged to get out and do this for her; but she had refused so decidedly, and plodded on so persistently, that he was forced to obey her, and he watched her little figure and pale, set face, compassionately. She had just asked at the milliner’s, gay with its spring and summer ribbons and flowers, and smart in the perky hats adorning the big window, and had turned away despairingly, going into the neighboring shops, and asking the same question, to leaveeverybody sad and anxious to help, when they knew Mr. Jasper King’s children were lost. Mechanically she turned up the next step of a little shop, wedged in between two taller ones, and having on the sign above the green door,—
J. BEEBE.BOOTS AND SHOES.
There was Barby in a little wooden chairThere was Barby in a little wooden chair, eating bread and butter with a very sticky face.
There was Barby in a little wooden chair, eating bread and butter with a very sticky face.
There was Barby in a little wooden chair, eating bread and butter with a very sticky face.
“Have you seen,” she began, with no hope of success, “two little”—and there was Barbyin a little wooden chair, eating bread and butter with a very sticky face, while Elyot was capering around the small shop on a cane, an old man with big silver spectacles laughing to see him go.