A PROBLEM TO SOLVE
A boy with a pair of crutches beside him sat on the steps of the
apartment house where Carolyn May lived.
"'Lo, Carolyn May!" he said when the greatly, excited little girl and
the mongrel dog arrived, "Your Pop's got home."
"Oh, Johnny O'Harrity, I am so glad!" she said with relief. "I'd most
forgotten this was his night for getting home early. So _much_ has
happened this afternoon," and she sighed ecstatically.
"There's always something happening to you, Carolyn May, let you tell
it," said the janitor's boy, enviously. "What is it now?"
"Oh, I couldn't stop to tell you all, Johnny," declared the little
girl, slipping Prince's leash and letting him free to scramble up the
steps. "Just the _won_-derfulest thing happened--"
"Aw, pshaw!" scoffed the boy, unwilling to admit that a mere girl could
fall upon Adventure so easily. "Like my grandmother says, you're always
taking mice for monsters."
"I'm not either!" gasped the little girl. "You are an awfully impolite
boy to say so--and I don't like mice! You just look at _that_, Johnny
O'Harrity!" and she thrust her hand clutching the twenty dollar bill
under his freckled nose. "What would you say if a man just gave you
that and you didn't know who it belonged to? So there!"
She refolded the banknote and marched into the house with her head
in the air, leaving Johnny O'Harrity speechless. The possession of a
bill of such large denomination was too tangible evidence of "just the
_won_-derfulest thing" having happened for the young sceptic to doubt
longer. Visions of a wealth of ice-cream cones, lollipops and all-day
suckers danced in the lame boy's mental vision.
"Aw, Carolyn, I didn't mean to make you mad!" he cried after her. "I
was only foolin'."
But Carolyn May went on without reply. Perhaps she had reason to
suspect Johnny O'Harrity's disingenuousness.
Prince was whining at the apartment door when she reached the top of
the two flights of stairs in the semi-lighted stairwell. She put a
dimpled finger on the annunciator button, and at once a muffled step
approached along the private hall of the Cameron apartment. It wasn't
mother's light and busy step, so Carolyn May shrank back beside the
doorframe and clapped a pink palm upon her mouth to smother the giggles
that immediately arose to her lips.
The door opened. A man in his shirtsleeves, with a beard and twinkling
blue eyes, appeared in the opening. He peered sharply into the hall
and seemed not to recognize the small figure in the tam-o'-shanter,
although Prince slipped in between his legs with a joyful snuffle and
made his way kitchenward, from which direction certain delightful
odours proclaimed that dinner was in preparation.
"How do you do, little girl?" said the man. "Did you wish to see
anybody in particular?"
"Does--does Miss Carolyn May Cameron live here?" asked the little girl,
struggling to keep down the giggles.
"Why, yes. She does live here--when she's at home," admitted the man
doubtfully. "But she isn't at home much."
"When is she home the most?" asked Carolyn May, "for I'd like to see
her, please."
"She's home the most when she's out the least," declared Mr. Cameron.
"Almost always she seems to be out when her papa comes home for his
once-a-week dinner."
"Oh, Papa!"
"Oh, Snuggy!"
So the make-believe ended as she flung herself into his arms and he
caught her up bodily and hugged her--oh, so tightly!--to his breast.
"It will be hard sledding, as your Uncle Joe would say, Snuggy, when
you are too big for me to pick up this way," he declared, bearing her
off to the front room, there to reseat himself in an arm-chair and hold
her on his lap.
"Shall I ever be as big as that?" Carolyn asked, rather seriously.
Her father laughed, and then Carolyn May suddenly remembered her
"_won_-derfulest" happening.
"See here, Papa Cameron!" she cried, and opened her hand to reveal the
twenty dollar bill.
"'Pitcher of George Washington!' as your friend, Tim the hackman,
says," cried her father, with dancing eyes. "Is there really so much
money in this work-a-day world? Twenty whole dollars? My!"
"Oh," said Carolyn May, dimpling, "the man who gave it to me must have
lots more than this. He was an _awfully_ rich looking man."
"And he gave it to _you_?" questioned her father, his curiosity excited.
"Oh, yes, Papa. For a friend of mine. She's a pale lady, and the baby's
just as _sweet_! But he's awfully skinny. I should think she would
have choosed a fatter baby. And the man gave me this money for her
because he didn't run over the baby," went on Carolyn May with absolute
indifference to her persons and tenses. But Mr. Cameron was used to
what he called the little girl's "fearlessness in the use of the
English language." She was bound by few hard-and-fast rules of grammar.
"Yes. I should think that would have pleased him quite twenty dollars'
worth," agreed Mr. Cameron. "But now suppose you tell me all about it,
Snuggy, from the very start. I think likely I shall get a clearer idea
of how my little girl became possessed of so much wealth."
So Carolyn May went back to the pale lady and her baby on the bench
in the park, and how she and Prince had made their acquaintance. The
resultant adventure when the pale lady had wrecked her baby's go-cart
reminded Papa Cameron of the perils confronting his little daughter
whenever she went out on the streets.
"It was a narrow escape," he said with a sigh. "I hope you, Snuggy,
are just as careful as you can be when you come to a crossing?"
"Oh, yes, I am!" she cried. "And so is Princey. He barks if he sees
anything coming. And he grabbed the pale lady's skirt with his teeth.
But now, Papa Cameron, how shall I find her and give her this money for
a new baby carriage?"
That was a question which was the text for much discussion around the
dinner table. Mamma Cameron was quite as deeply interested in the
problem as her husband and her little daughter. Mamma Cameron was a
very sweet looking woman, and a single glance was all one needed to be
assured that Carolyn May was her daughter.
"The poor woman doubtless needs that twenty dollars, Lewis," she
said to Carolyn's father. "How careless people with plenty of money
sometimes are!"
"Careless in giving away money to small girls, Hannah?" asked Mr.
Cameron quizzically; "or careless in running their cars?"
"Careless in thinking that the giving of twenty dollars in this case
absolves them from all responsibility. It would seem as if that man did
not care whether the money ever reached the woman or not. He considered
his conscience salved."
"Perhaps you are right, my dear," rejoined Mr. Cameron. "The more
reason, then, why we should carry through his good intention. We must
find the pale lady."
"Of course we must!" cried Carolyn May with enthusiasm. "Shall we put
an advertisement in your paper?"
"'Advertising pays'--we are agreed on that," said her father, smiling.
"But in this case we may assume that a less bald method of publicity
had better be tried first. Did you never see the pale lady in the park
before, Snuggy?"
"No, Papa, never before. But, then, she might come there often just the
same. You know, Princey and I don't often go there in the afternoon."
"Perhaps you and Mamma can go tomorrow and look for her," Mr. Cameron
suggested. "She cannot live far away, or she would not have been
sitting in that particular quarter of Central Park. And we may assume,
also, that her home is in an easterly direction, as that was the way
she was going when the automobile literally crossed her path."
"I wonder who the people were in the auto, Lewis," said Mrs. Cameron.
"It is not likely that we shall learn that," her husband replied. "But
Carolyn's friend, the pale lady, we must find.
"Carolyn's suggestion of advertising in the paper may not be far
out of the way," he pursued. "A personal, advising the pale lady to
communicate with the advertiser, and mentioning the incident and the
fact that she will learn something to her financial advantage, would
possibly attract her attention. We'll see about that later."
"Maybe we'll have to send for Uncle Joe Stagg to find her," put in
Carolyn May excitedly. "You know, he found Miss Mandy and me when
the whole forest was burning up, and brought us safe back to the
Corners."[1]
[Footnote 1: See "Carolyn of the Corners."]
"It shocks me," her mother said, with a sigh, "to remember what dangers
the child experienced while we were away, Lewis. Sometimes I feel that
I cannot bear to have her out of my sight again."
"Yes, our Snuggy has experienced perils by flood and fire with a
vengeance. I had no idea, Hannah," he went on, "that my assignment to
an Italian post for the _Beacon_ was to result in so much excitement
and adventure for Carolyn May. When our reported loss with the
_Dunraven_ seemed a fact, of course there was nothing for Mr. Price to
do but to send Snuggy to your brother."
Carolyn May was busy with her dinner and her own particular thoughts.
Her parents could speak freely before her at the moment.
"I believe her going to the Corners was the making of Joseph Stagg,"
said Mrs. Cameron thoughtfully.
"At least, it was his making over," her husband rejoined, with a
boylike grin.
"He had been a business automaton almost, it seems to me, since I could
remember," said Hannah Cameron. "Now, how he has changed!"
"I fancy," said Carolyn May's father, with a little smile, "that Miss
Amanda Parlow, 'that was,' as the Corner folks say, has had something
to do with the metamorphosis of Joe Stagg."
"But Carolyn began it. Joseph Stagg would never have awakened and
married Mandy if it had not been for our child. Never! Even Aunty Rose
Kennedy says that."
"She certainly is a wonderful little matchmaker," chuckled the man.
"They have much to thank her for, Hannah. No wonder they are so eager
to have you and the child spend a part of the summer at Sunrise Cove
and the Corners.
"But, now! about this twenty dollar bill, and the pale lady. Will you
be able to give some time to it, Hannah?"
"I certainly will try, Lewis. But I do not think Carolyn May should
carry that money about herself."
Mr. Cameron tapped his breast pocket. "It is in my wallet right now,"
he said. "Let the pale lady be found and we will soon put the money
into her hands. Still, the responsibility lies heavily upon the Cameron
family until the actual owner of the twenty dollar note comes to light."
"Of course we shall find her, Papa," Carolyn May said with assurance.
"Princey and I and mamma are sure to meet the pale lady. And mamma will
just _love_ her I know. She is a very, very nice lady."
"And that is also her opinion of Bridget Dorgan who comes to do the
scrubbing and smells of beer," sighed Mrs. Cameron aside. "Sometimes
I really think, Lewis, that Carolyn May's taste in friendships is
altogether too catholic."
Her husband merely chuckled.