"Why, of course, the children are all right," Neale said, briskly. "Hold
on! I'll make them hear."
He punched the lever of the horn several times and the clarion "Honk!
Honk!" echoed through the grove.
"Oh, mercy!" ejaculated Mrs. Heard, with her hands over her ears. "That
should wake the dead."
"Well, let's see if it wakes up Tess and Dot," laughed Neale O'Neil.
"Come on, Aggie, let you and me run and find them."
"Don't get lost yourselves," Ruth called after them, laughing now.
After being startled for the moment by Sammy's report, all of them felt
it was really impossible that Tess and Dot should be lost.
Neale and Agnes, with Tom Jonah in pursuit, ran over the slight rise out
of sight, hand in hand and laughing, like the children they were
themselves. They came to the fence and looked through it.
"Of course, that's where they are," Agnes said. "Do look at the flowers,
Neale."
"They must have gone on down the hill," the boy agreed, and he and Agnes
crept through the fence, on the trail of Tess and Dot.
They saw no trace of the children at first. And the mild-eyed cow that
had caused all the trouble had disappeared. After a while Agnes cried
out: "Oh, Neale! They picked flowers here. See the broken stalks!"
"Sure," he agreed. "Let's shout for them."
Again and again they shouted the little girls' names--singly and in
unison.
"Where _could_ they have gone--not to hear us?" demanded Agnes.
"Don't suppose they are playing 'possum, do you?"
"Oh, Neale--never!"
"But there's no place for them to go. You can see all over this pasture.
Here, Tom Jonah! Find them! Find Tess and Dot!"
"We can't see behind all the clumps of bushes," suggested Agnes.
"But, cricky! are they asleep behind the bushes somewhere?" Neale
demanded.
"No-o. Not likely," Agnes admitted.
"But--here!" shouted Neale. "What's this?"
He had found the place where Tess, frightened, as was Dot, by the cow,
had stood up and dropped her great bunch of picked flowers. "What do you
know about that?" the boy asked, quite seriously.
"Oh, Neale! Their flowers. They would never have thrown them away unless
something had happened."
"But what?"
"I can't imagine," said Agnes, almost in tears.
"Neither can I," growled the boy, staring around the field. "Now, don't
turn on the sprinkler, Aggie. Chirk up. Of course, nothing really _bad_
has happened to them."
"Why hasn't there?" choked Agnes.
"Well, how could there? Right here almost in sight of the road. You
girls would have heard them if they had cried out----"
"Do you think they've been carried off--stolen--kidnapped? Oh, Neale
O'Neil! do you?" almost shrieked Agnes.
"Oh, stop it, you little goose--stop it," begged the boy. "Of course
not."
"Goose yourself----"
"No; gander," said Neale O'Neil, determined now not to let Agnes see how
serious he felt the disappearance of Tess and Dot was. "Now, Aggie, you
stay here while I run around a bit and see what I can find."
He started off, Tom Jonah going too. The hot sun had almost immediately
destroyed any scent the children may have left as they passed; and
although the old dog understood very well what the matter was--that his
two little mistresses had disappeared--he could find the trail no better
than could Neale and Agnes.
Neale ran, shouting, toward the far end of the pasture. Almost at once
he and the barking dog started something.
With a puffing snort, and a great crackling of brush, up rose the
peaceful cow that had so startled Tess and Dot Kenway.
"Oh, Neale! come back!" shrieked Agnes, as she saw the wondering cow
looking over the bush at her.
"What's the matter?" the boy demanded, while Tom Jonah approached the
cow curiously.
"The cow!"
"Oh, she won't hurt you," declared Neale O'Neil.
"Just the same I'm afraid of her," said Agnes. "See her now!"
The cow was shaking her horns at the dog, and threatening him.
"Like enough she has a calf hidden away there in the brush," said Neale.
"And----Cricky!" suddenly he added; "I bet she scared the kids."
"Oh, Neale!"
"Sure! That's what's the matter. They saw her and ran. And they ran in
the wrong direction, of course," Neale continued, with very good
judgment.
"Do you really think so, Neale?"
"Just as likely as not. Come here, Tom Jonah! She'll hook you yet."
"Oh!" said Agnes, quickly, "then we should be able to find the poor
little things easily."
"Huh? How do you make that out?" Neale demanded.
"Why, if they ran in the wrong direction, we ought to follow them."
"That's all right," returned the boy. "But there are so many wrong
directions! Which did they take?"
Agnes began to sob. Neale could not comfort her. Tom Jonah came and
lapped her hands with his soft tongue, to show that he, too, sympathized
with her.
The boy shouted until he was hoarse; but no childish cry was returned to
him on the soft breeze.
And there was very good reason for that. The two smallest Corner House
girls had some time since wandered beyond the sound of Neale's voice or
the dog's bark,--even beyond the sound of the automobile horn.
While the older folk were seeking Tess and Dot, the two young explorers
were seeking their friends. At first one could not have convinced the
children that they were lost. No, indeed! It was Ruth and Agnes and
Neale and Tom Jonah and Mrs. Heard and Sammy--and even the
automobile--that had lost themselves.
"I don't see where they could have gone to," complained Dot, tired at
last of carrying both the Alice-doll and her flowers so far.
"I didn't s'pose we'd come so far from that road," agreed Tess.
"Oh, I see it!" Dot cried, suddenly.
"The auto?"
"No, no! The road."
"Oh," said Tess, gladly. "Then we'll find them now."
The little girls climbed down a bank into a road which--had they known
it--would have taken them out into the more important highway the
motorcar was on. But unfortunately Tess and Dot turned in the wrong
direction. They kept on walking away from their friends.
Had they not done this, or had they sat down and waited, Neale O'Neil
and Tom Jonah would have found them in time; for they searched the patch
of woods clear to this back road before returning, hopelessly, to the
automobile to report their failure.
However, Tess and Dot walked and walked, until they really could walk no
farther without resting. And then, having been absent from their friends
for fully three hours, they had to sit down.
Dot cried a bit and Tess put her arms about her and tried to comfort the
smallest Corner House girl. They had both long since thrown their
flowers away, for the blossoms had wilted.
"Never mind, Dot," Tess said, trying to be very brave, "Ruthie and Aggie
and the rest can't be far away."
"But why did they go off and leave us behind?" wailed the little girl.
"And--and--I _ache_!"
"Where do you ache, dear?" asked the sympathetic Tess.
"In--in that funny bone that goes up and down my back," sobbed Dot.
"Funny-bone! Why, Dot!" cried Tess, "that isn't in your back. Your
funny-bone is in your elbow."
"I guess I know where I hurt, Tess Kenway!" responded Dot, indignantly.
"And it isn't in my elbow. It's that long, straight bone in my back I'm
talking about. You know, Tess--your head sits on one end of it and you
sit on the other. And it's all--just--one--big--ache----So there!" and she
cried again.
"Now, I tell you what, Dot Kenway," said Tess, briskly. "There's one
thing never does any good--not when your folks is lost from you."
"Wha--what's that?" choked the smallest Corner House girl.
"Crying," the older sister said, firmly.
"We--ell," sniffed Dot.
"So let's not do it. We can rest here as long as you want. When your
backbone stops aching, we can go on."
"But where'll we go to?" was Dot's very pertinent query.
"Why--why, we'll just walk on--along the road."
"And where does _it_ go to?"
"Why, does that matter?" returned Tess, bravely. "Of course our
automobile will come along and pick us up. Or, if it doesn't, we'll
reach a house and the lady will invite us in."
"Well," whimpered Dot, "I don't care how soon we reach that house--and
the lady 'vites us in--and gives us our supper. I'm hungry, Tess."
"Don't you s'pose _I_ am, too?" asked the older girl, with some
asperity. Dot _did_ sound rather selfish. "And Alice?"
"Oh! the poor, dear child must be just starved," sniffed Dot, hugging
the doll closer.
"But she isn't complaining all the time," said Tess, scornfully.
Dot fought back her tears. "I think you're horrid, cruel, cross, Tess
Kenway!" she said. "But I'll try not to cry."
There was reason for the children's hunger. It was now after six
o'clock, the sun had disappeared behind the woods, and they had walked a
long way.
Once they heard a great crashing in the bushes.
"Bears! bears!" whispered the excitable Dot.
"No-o," Tess said, gravely. "It didn't say anything about there being
bears in this neighborhood, in that book of Neale's. If there were
bears, he'd have told us about them."
"Well--well----whales, maybe."
"Goodness, Dot! you are the tryingest child! Whales live in the sea."
"Don't they ever come out?"
"Of course not," declared Tess, with conviction.
"Not even to rest themselves?" demanded Dot, with wonder. "I should
think they would get awful tired swimming all the time. It must be more
tireful than walking," and she sighed.
"Tire-some," corrected Tess, but without enthusiasm, and thinking of the
whales. "Perhaps they come into shallow water and lie down on the bottom
of the sea with their heads sticking out to breathe. Yes, that must be
it."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Dot, for at least the twentieth time, and with
lapsing interest in the whale. "Oh, dear! I wish Tom Jonah were with
us."
"So do I! So do I!" agreed Tess, for as dusk came on she, like the
smallest Corner House girl, was becoming truly frightened.
The disturbance in the bushes was repeated, and the children tried to
run. A loud bell jangled--a most annoying bell; and in the distance a
voice sounded:
"So, boss! So, boss! So, boss!"
It only frightened Tess and Dot the more to hear such strange sounds.
They had never before heard the cows called home. And, besides, after
their recent experience, they would have been only the more disturbed
had they been aware that the thrashing in the bushes was Sukey, getting
ready to go up to the bars to be milked.
No house did they see, however; not even a barn. They were on a back
road, very seldom traveled, and the farms, what few there were in the
neighborhood, faced on other highways.
The children trudged on, hand in hand, both crying now. Tess was weeping
softly; but Dot was crying aloud, not caring who heard her.
When they came to a field beside the road, Tess stared all about for a
light. But there was no beckoning lamp in a farmhouse window; nor even a
flickering lantern to point the way to the farm outbuildings.
The streak of violet, shading to light blue, that evening had painted
along the horizon with her careless brush, disappeared. Tall, black
figures of trees upreared themselves between the children and the sky,
and seemed to stalk nearer, threateningly.
A great nightbird floated out of the wood and swept low across the field
with a "swish, swish, swish" of powerful wings. When it rose into the
trees again it said:
"Who? Who-o? Who-o-o?"
"Oh! Who _is_ he?" gasped Dot, clinging close to her sister.
"Mr. Owl," said Tess, promptly. "You _know_ you've heard about owls, Dot
Kenway!"
"But--but I didn't know they could _talk_," breathed the smallest Corner
House girl, with a sigh. "Tessie, I can't walk any farther," she
suddenly announced. "It isn't only that funny bone in my back; but my
ankles are breaking right off--so now!"
"But--but there isn't any good place for us to stop till our automobile
comes along," hesitated Tess.
"I don't care, Tess Kenway! _I've got to stop!_"
That settled it. At the edge of the dark wood the two little girls crept
up on a grassy bank, between two roots of a great tree, sheltered at the
back by a thick brush clump, and there they sat, clinging to each
other's hand.
They were too frightened to talk. Too alarmed even to weep any more.
Around them, when they were still, scurried the little creatures of the
night--the field mice, and the moles, perhaps, and the baby rabbits, and
other small animals who shiver--as Dot did--when the great owl swoops low,
crying his eternal question:
"Who? Who-o? Who-o-o shall I take for supper?"
The small fry of the fields and woods tremble at that cry more than did
the two lost Corner House girls.
There may have been other enemies of the helpless, furry little animals
lurking near, too--the weasel, the polecat, the ferret; even a red fox
might have wandered that way and joined the bright-eyed company that
kept watch and ward over two sleepy, sobbing children.
But nothing harmful was near them and, finally, Tess and Dot Kenway
slept as sweetly and as soundly as though they were in their own beds in
the old Corner House in Milton.