A LITTLE GIRL LOST
Mrs. Hildreth may not have been as good a cook as Winnie. Whatever the
reason, no one came whistling up from the bungalow after dinner to
suggest "Let's hear 'Old Black Joe,'" or to offer to play a game of
croquet. Presently Doctor Hugh announced that he was going to walk
down to see Jack, and Rosemary went with him. Sarah and Shirley were,
with some difficulty, persuaded to remain behind.
"Nobody home," was Richard's disconsolate greeting as he rose from the
porch railing. "Mr. Hildreth has gone across fields to borrow some
more crates and Mrs. Hildreth is setting bread in the kitchen. Warren
has gone to the Center and Jack is nursing a grouch upstairs."
"Well, I came to see Jack," said the doctor. "I'll go up in a minute."
"He and Warren are on the outs," declared Richard frankly. "Each one
thinks he is a Roman candle."
"How perfectly horrid of Warren!" said Rosemary hotly.
"Warren?" echoed the bewildered Richard. "What has Warren done to you?"
"He hasn't done anything to me--" Rosemary's color began to rise.
"But I don't think he is one bit fair to Jack."
Before Richard could argue this, the door opened and Jack came out. He
had heard voices and perhaps wished to discourage the intention of the
doctor to come up and see him. He sat down on the opposite side of the
step from Rosemary and her brother and put one hand carelessly behind
him.
"Hello!" he said grumpily.
"Say, those fish were fine," declared Richard, feeling his
responsibility as host, since Jack did not seem moved to speech. "They
were so fresh, I could almost see 'em leaping out of the brook. You
must have had good luck."
"First-rate," said the doctor. "Sorry you couldn't come up to the
house for dinner, Rich."
"Well, I could have come," admitted Richard cautiously, "but I'm no
good presenting regrets for others. Warren and Jack were peeved--"
"You needn't make any excuses for me," interrupted Jack coldly, holding
up a throbbing hand behind his back.
"See?" said Richard with a gesture of despair. "What could a fellow
do? And I'll bet Winnie cooks fish so you never forget it."
"She's a good cook," Doctor Hugh conceded.
Richard sighed. He wished Rosemary felt more talkative. In his
anxiety to entertain his guests, he stumbled on a sore subject.
"I used to go fishing pretty often myself," he said pleasantly. "The
first year we were in college, Warren and I went off by ourselves
nearly every Saturday afternoon. We made friends with the State
wardens and they told us a lot of useful things. Once we saw them
stock a stream--that was great. Ever see that, Jack?"
"No," snapped Jack, "and I'm not likely to; the only thing I'll know by
the end of this summer will be how many cans of tomatoes the Goldenrod
Canning Company has packed this year."
"How do they stock a stream?" asked Rosemary, her curiosity unloosening
her tongue.
"Oh, they have thousands of baby fish and they ladle 'em out like so
much fine gold," said Richard. "And we saw them net a pond once for
carp--I wish I had more time to play around. Perhaps when Warren and I
get our own farm we can carry out a few ideas of ours."
"What's that you're going to do when you get your own farm, Richard?"
asked Mrs. Hildreth, coming out on the porch, looking warm and tired.
"I declare, every summer I say I'll have the baker stop here," she
added. "I get so sick of baking my own bread when it's warm."
She did not sit down, but stood poised on the top step. Jack who had
risen with the rest, kept one hand stiffly away from his body.
"What were you saying, Richard?" asked Mrs. Hildreth again.
"Oh, I was day-dreaming I guess," Richard answered. "I said that when
Warren and I have our own farm, perhaps we'll have time to do some of
the things we have always wanted to do."
Mrs. Hildreth mopped her flushed face with a handkerchief of generous
size.
"Well, you won't," she prophesied. "I never knew anyone who lived on a
farm to have a minute's time for anything but the hardest kind of work.
Even in winter when the crops are in, there's wood to get out and cut
and the animals to be fed and bedded down and the fires to look after
and paths to be opened and the milking to be done. It's one thing
after another, all the year round."
Richard put one arm around the porch pillar.
"It could be different," he insisted. "For instance, you could buy
bread--you just said so. That would save you some time."
"Which I should feel duty-bound to use in canning more fruit,"
countered Mrs. Hildreth promptly. "I'm not so keen on work, but the
way I'm made, I feel guilty if I waste a half hour."
"It isn't wasting time to have a little enjoyment and leisure," Richard
declared doggedly. "Is it, Jack?"
Jack a moment before had struck his hand against the porch railing, a
light tap, scarcely to be noticed. But his face was white as he turned
savagely on Richard.
"Work is the only thing that counts and you know it," he said fiercely.
"The crops and the crops alone, are to be considered. If you kill
yourself getting them in, that's a small matter; next year someone else
will plant 'em again and perhaps kill himself, too."
"Dear me, Jack, maybe you have a little touch of the sun," said Mrs.
Hildreth. "I think the doctor had better give you something to make
you sleep. You will, won't you, Doctor Willis?" the good woman urged
anxiously.
"I'm all right," said Jack.
"Well, I'm sure I hope so," she returned in a voice that was far from
sounding convinced. "Mr. Hildreth had a brother who had a sunstroke
once and he wasn't right for years. Were you working in a blaze
to-day, Jack?"
"He wore a hat," said Richard quickly, fearful that Jack's scant supply
of patience would be utterly exhausted. "Besides, there was a breeze
in the afternoon. It wasn't a bad day at all, Mrs. Hildreth."
"Don't you want to sit down, Mrs. Hildreth?" suggested Rosemary,
wondering how anyone could remain standing so long, after being on her
feet virtually all day.
"No, I'm going down the road in a minute," Mrs. Hildreth answered. "I
want to ask Mrs. Tice about some new kind of rubber rings she got for
her jars. How much fruit did Winnie put up so far, Rosemary?"
"Why--I don't believe I know," said Rosemary with a little laugh. "She
made jelly, I remember and she's been canning nearly every week; but I
don't know how many quarts or pints she has. Do you, Hugh?"
"Never counted," acknowledged the doctor lazily. "I'll warrant Winnie
can tell you right off the reel, Mrs. Hildreth. She's proud of her
success--I heard her tell my mother so."
"I'll step over and look at her shelves some day," promised Mrs.
Hildreth. "Dear me, I'm tired. But if I don't go to Bertha's now,
I'll never get there. Tell Mr. Hildreth I'll be right back, if he asks
you where I am."
She went heavily down the steps and disappeared across the lawn.
Richard dropped with an exaggerated thud.
"Another minute and my ankles would have given out!" he declared. "And
she thinks it is work that tired her out."
"Well, it is," said Rosemary. "She works from five in the morning till
nearly ten at night."
"But she could rest, if she only knew how," Richard protested.
"Ah, now you have it, Rich," said Doctor Hugh. "There's a great deal
in knowing how to rest."
"There's no use in knowing how, when you can't rest if you want to,"
Jack complained bitterly.
"That isn't a very clear sentence, Jack," said the doctor. "Explain a
little, won't you?"
"Oh, I'm tired," Jack declared ungraciously, "and there's nothing to
explain, anyway."
The desultory conversation that followed was almost wholly between
Rosemary and Richard. Jack was curiously silent and Doctor Hugh, too,
seemed content to listen. Finally he rose.
"We must be getting back," he said. "First though, I'll take a look at
your hand, Jack."
"There's nothing the matter with it," countered Jack gruffly.
"You act remarkably like Sarah," was Doctor Hugh's response to this.
"Come in where I can have a light and don't be foolish."
Jack followed him sulkily and Rosemary and Richard watched while the
doctor unwound the cloth that bound the injured finger. The cut was an
angry-looking one.
"Needs attention," Doctor Hugh commented briefly. "Do you want to come
up to the house with me, or shall I send Rosemary for the iodine
bottle?"
Jack elected to remain where he was, and Rosemary sped away to get
bandages and antiseptics. Mrs. Hildreth's tea kettle was requisitioned
for a supply of hot water and then the doctor washed and dressed the
cut, Jack enduring the process gamely.
"I won't knock off," he said defiantly as the last gauze fold was
fastened in place. "I'm going to pick tomatoes, if I have to do it
with my left hand."
"You can use your hand, if you'll keep the bandages in place," the
doctor assured him. "I'll dress it again for you in the morning--and
don't let me have to send for you. When you have had breakfast, come
and get your hand attended to, before you go into the field."
"He'll feel better now," he said to Rosemary as they walked slowly down
the road, extending their walk to enjoy the beauty of the summer
evening. "His finger was throbbing and beginning to fester and must
have given him great pain all day."
"Here comes Warren," whispered Rosemary.
Warren looked warm and tired. He stopped when he saw them and Rosemary
would have walked on with a short "Hello!" had not her brother's hand
upon her arm held her.
"You've been down to the bungalow?" said Warren, after he had thanked
them for the fish and congratulated the fisherman on his luck. "I'm
sorry I missed you."
"We went to see Jack," Rosemary informed him pointedly. "He's sick."
"Jack sick?" Warren looked surprised and, though she would not have
admitted it, concerned.
"Not sick--but he has rather a nasty cut on one finger," corrected
Doctor Hugh. "He'll be all right, if he follows directions."
Warren's eyes were troubled.
"I'm afraid he's having a tough time," he said regretfully. "I'm
sorry, but--" he left the sentence unfinished.
The storm signals in Rosemary's expressive face were easily interpreted
by her brother. He said good night to Warren and they resumed their
walk.
"Why didn't you say something, Hugh!" burst out Rosemary, hardly
waiting till they were beyond earshot. "Why didn't you tell him that
Jack is our friend and that Warren needn't think he can treat him like
that!"
"I don't know that Jack is being treated 'like that,'" protested Doctor
Hugh whimsically. "You looked so like a thunder cloud, Rosemary, that
there was nothing left to be said."
Rosemary jerked her arm free and faced him tempestuously.
"I believe you're taking Warren's part!" she accused him. "How can
you? Anyway, I don't care what you do--Jack Welles is my friend!"
"Jack is to be envied," said Doctor Hugh gently. "Though I wish, dear,
that you would learn to reason a little more quietly. You know I am
very fond of Jack--he is a splendid lad in many ways. So is Warren.
This quarrel between them will blow over--why Rosemary, you and Jack
have half a dozen quarrels a year and none of them are serious."
But the next day matters remained in much the same uncomfortable state.
Jack reported obediently to have his finger dressed and refused--with
more vigor than courtesy--Warren's offer to release him from picking
for that day. Rosemary had a hot argument with Sarah, who perversely
upheld Warren's cause, and then quarreled with her brother, who would
not admit that Jack was a martyr.
"We won't discuss it any further, Rosemary," he said at last. "As far
as I can judge, Warren is in the right and Jack is acting like a young
and obstinate donkey."
The following afternoon Mrs. Willis went in to spend the night at the
Eastshore house and choose the wall paper for the new suite of rooms.
Doctor Hugh drove her in and was to drive her out the next morning.
Jack had just finished bedding down the horses that night, and was
wondering whether he had the energy to dress and go up to the little
white house, when he heard Rosemary's voice outside the barn.
"Jack! Jack, where are you?"
"Here!" Jack hurried into sight. "What's the matter?" he demanded
when he saw her face.
"Sarah!" gasped Rosemary. "She didn't come in to supper and none of us
have seen her the entire afternoon. Winnie wanted to telephone Hugh,
but I am so afraid it will worry Mother."
"Don't telephone!" commanded Jack. "She's somewhere on the place and
has forgotten to come in; let her get hungry and she'll turn up. But
we'll go find her and remind her it's after six o'clock."
Jack's cheerful matter-of-fact acceptance of Sarah's absence was the
surest way to relieve the anxiety Winnie, as well as the girls, felt.
At once they assured each other that Sarah was playing somewhere on the
farm and had forgotten to come home. The discovery that Bony was also
missing bore out Jack's theory; Sarah and the pig were having a
beautiful time together.
Leaving Winnie and the two girls to search the barn and outbuildings,
Jack hurried off to get reinforcements. He thought of Warren as a
tower of strength, cool, level-headed Warren who could manage any
situation.
Warren and Richard had finished the last chore and were beginning to
change, when Jack burst unceremoniously into their room.
"Warren!" he hurdled the wall of misunderstanding that had grown up
between them in one agile leap. "Warren, they say Sarah Willis is
lost. She didn't come home to supper. Mrs. Willis is in Eastshore
with Hugh to-night and we have to find Sarah without letting her mother
know."
Warren agreed that Rainbow Hill was to be searched from one end to the
other. He and Richard and Jack went in different directions and Mr.
Hildreth took a fourth. Winnie stayed at the house, in case the lost
one returned, and Rosemary and Shirley went down to Miss Clinton's to
ask if Sarah had perhaps been there that afternoon. She had not and
when they came back Winnie put Shirley to bed for it was past her bed
hour and she was tired and sleepy.
No trace of Sarah was found on the farm and no better luck was
encountered at the Gay farm, whither Jack went, or at the two nearest
neighbors, queried by Warren and Richard, cautiously, lest the alarm
spread and be relayed by the garrulous and unthinking to the little
mother.
"Say, Warren," Jack stopped him as he was setting out again. "Old
Belle isn't in her pasture."
"Old Belle!"
"And the light runabout and one set of single harness is gone--I
looked."
"That kid couldn't harness without help and get off this place--don't
tell me!" Warren's tone was half skeptical, half alarmed.
"Sarah can do anything you don't expect her to do," declared Jack.
"Take it from me, that's what she has done this time. But how are we
to find out the direction she took?"
"She'd go to Bennington," said Warren quickly. "If she had gone toward
Eastshore someone who knew her would have been sure to spot her;
besides, she is crazy about Bennington, always teasing to go with Hugh."
Old Belle was the oldest horse on the farm, a shambling, half-blind
creature whose days of work had long been over. In summer she reveled
in clover pasture, and the warmest box stall and choicest oats were
hers in winter. Sarah had ridden her around the pasture a number of
times, but it had never occurred to anyone that she would attempt to
drive her. Indeed the boys had not known that Sarah knew how to
harness.
Three pairs of willing hands quickly backed "Tony," Mr. Hildreth's
light driving horse, into the shafts of the buggy and, telling the
anxious Winnie and Rosemary that they would have good news for them
soon, they drove off toward Bennington, the county seat.
They said little, but they were more worried than they cared to admit.
The highway was a state road and automobiles ran in both directions,
two fairly steady streams. It was dark by now and the glare of the
headlights might easily confuse an old, enfeebled horse and a little
girl whose driving skill was of the slightest.
Warren drove and presently he pulled in the horse and gave the reins to
Jack.
"I want to look at the road," he said, leaping lightly over the wheel
and turning his pocket flash light full on the dusty macadam.