THE PUMPKIN HOOD.
To the "Eagle" office they went--obstinate Horace, patient Annt Madge,
and between them the "blue-bottle Fly."
"I do feel right sorry, auntie," said Horace, a sudden sense of shame
coming over him; "but I'm so sure I dropped the money, you know; or I
wouldn't drag you up this hill when you're so tired."
A sharp answer rose to Mrs. Allen's lips, but she held it back.
"Only a boy! In a fair way to learn a useful lesson, too. Let me keep my
temper! If I scold, I spoil the whole."
They entered the office, and left with the editor this advertisement:--
"Lost.--Between Prospect Park and Fulton Ferry, a porte-monnaie, marked
'Horace S. Clifford,' containing thirty-five dollars. The finder will be
suitably rewarded by leaving the same at No. ----, Cor. Fifth Ave. and
---- Street."
"It is no matter about advertising Prudy's purse, it was so shabby,"
said Aunt Madge; and on their way back to the ferry-house she bought her
another.
"O, thank you, auntie, darling," said Prudy; "and thank you, too,
Horace, for losing my old one; it wasn't fit to be seen. And here is a
whole dollar inside! O, Aunt Madge, _are_ you an angel?"
"Prue, you deserve your good luck; you don't come down on a fellow,
hammer and tongs, because he happens to meet with an accident."
"Horace," said Dotty, meekly, "are you willing to carry my gloves?"
"Yes, to be sure; but you don't want to go home bare-handed--do you?"
"Why, I was thinking how nice 'twould be, Horace, to have you take 'em,
and lose 'em, and me have a new pair. There's a hole in the thumb."
This little sally amused everybody, and Horace had the grace not to be
sensitive, though the laugh was against him.
"Another queer day," said he, when they were at last at home again. "I
don't know what will become of us all, if we keep on like this."
The poor boy was trying his best to brave it out; but Aunt Madge could
see that his heart was sore.
"Lost every cent I'm worth," mused he, turning his coat-pocket inside
out, and scowling at it. "Got to be a beggar as long as I stay in New
York!"
The whole party were tired, and Horace's gloom seemed to fill the parlor
like a fog, and make even the gas look dim.
"I feel dreffly," said Fly, curling her head under her brother's arm,
like a chicken under its mother's wing--a way she had when she was
troubled. "I feel just zif I didn't love nobody in the world, and there
didn't nobody love me."
This brought Horace around in a minute, and called forth a pickaback
ride.
"Music! let us have music," said Aunt Madge, flying to the piano. "When
little folks grow so cold-hearted, in my house, that they don't love
anybody, it's time to warm their hearts with some happy little songs.
Come, girls!"
She played a few simple tunes, and the children all sang till the fog
of gloom had disappeared, and the gas burned brightly once more.
Half an hour afterwards, just as Fly was told she ought to be sleepy,
because her bye-low hymn had been sung,--"Sleep, little one, like a lamb
in the fold,"--and she had answered that she "couldn't be sleepy, athout
auntie would hurry quick to come in with a drink of water," there was a
strange arrival. Nathaniel, the waiting man, ushered into the parlor a
droll little old woman, dressed in a short calico gown, with gay figures
over it as large as cabbages; calf-skin shoes; and a green pumpkin hood,
with a bow on top.
"Good evening, ma'am," said Horace, rising, and offering her a chair.
She did not seem to see very well, in spite of her enormous spectacles;
for she took no notice of the chair, and remained standing in the
middle of the floor.
[Illustration: THE PUMPKIN HOOD.]
"She stares at me so hard!" thought Horace--"that's the reason she can't
see anything else."--"Please take a chair, ma'am."
"Can't stop to sit down. Is your name Horace S. Clifford?" said the old
woman, in a very feeble voice.
Horace looked at her; she had not a tooth in her head.
"Yes, ma'am; my name is Horace Clifford," said he, respectfully. He had
great reverence for age, and could keep his mouth from twitching; but
I'm sorry to say Prudy's danced up at the corners, and Dotty's opened
and showed her back teeth The woman must have had all those clothes made
when she was young, for nobody wore such things now; but it wasn't
likely she knew that, poor soul!
"Did you go to the 'Brooklyn Eagle' office, to-day, to ad-_ver_-tise
some lost money, little boy?"
"Yes, ma'am.--Why, that advertisement can't have been printed _so_
quick!"
"No, I calculate not. Did you go in with a lady, and a leetle, oneasy,
springy kind of a leetle girl?"
"Why, that's me," put in Fly.
"Yes, ma'am--yes; were you there? What do you know about it?"
"Don't be in a hurry, little boy. I want to be safe and sure. I expect
you took notice of a young man in a bottle-green coat,--no, a
greenish-black coat,--a-sittin' down by the door."
"O, I don't know. Yes, I think I did. Was he the one? Did he find the
money?"
"Did you walk up Orange Street?" continued the old woman. "No, I mean
Cranberry Street?"
"O, _dear_, I don't know! Prudy, run, call Aunt Madge. Please tell me,
ma'am, have you got it with you? Is my name on the inside?"
"Wait till the little girl calls your aunt. Perhaps she'd be willing to
let me tell the story in my own way. I'd ruther deal with grown folks,"
said the provoking old lady.
Horace's eyes flashed, but he contrived to keep his temper.
"It is my purse, ma'am, and my aunt knows nothing about it. I can tell
you just how it looks, and all there is in it."
"Perhaps you are one of the kind that can tell folks a good deal, and
thinks nobody knows things so well as yourself," returned the
disagreeable old woman, smiling and showing her toothless gums. "From
what I can learn, I should judge you talked ruther too loud about your
money; for there was a pusson heerd you in the ferry-boat, and took
pains to go in the same car afterwards, and pick your pocket."
"Pick--my--pocket?"
"Yes, your pocket. You wise, wonderful young man!"
"How? When? Where?"
"This is how," said the old woman, quick as a thought putting out her
hand, and thrusting it into Horace's breast pocket.
"O, it's auntie's rings--it's auntie's rings," cried Fly, jumping up,
and seizing the pretended old woman by her calico sleeve.
"Why, Aunt Madge, that isn't you!"
"But how'd you take out yer teeth?" said Fly; "your teeth? your teeth?"
"O, I didn't take them out, Miss Bright-eyes. I only put a little spruce
gum over them."
"Horace, I can't find auntie anywhere in this house," said Prudy,
appearing at the parlor door. "Do you suppose she's gone off and hid?"
"Yes, she's hid inside that old gown."
"What do you mean?"
"That's auntie, and her teeth's _in_," explained Fly.
"Only I wish she was an old woman, and had really brought me my money,"
said Horace, in a disappointed tone. "I declare, there was one time I
thought the old nuisance was coming round to it, and going to give me
the wallet."
"What a wise, wonderful youth!" said the aged dame, in a cracked voice.
"Thinks I can give him his wallet, when he's got it himself, right close
to his heart."
Horace put his hand in his breast pocket.
Wonder of wonders! There was the wallet! And not only his, but Prudy's!
Had he been asleep all day? Or was he asleep now?
"Money safe? Not a cent gone. Hoo-rah! Hoo-ra-ah!"
And for want of a cap to throw, he threw up Fly.
"Where did it come from? Where did the old woman find it? O, no; the man
in the green-bottle coat?--O, no; there wasn't any old woman," cried the
children, hopelessly confused. "But who found the money? Did I drop it
on Cranberry Street?" "Did he drop it on Quamby Street?" "Who brought
it?" "Who bringed it?"
Aunt Madge stuffed her fingers into her ears. "They are all talking at
once; they're enough to craze a body! They forget how old I am! Came all
the way from the Eagle office, afoot and alone, with only four children
to--"
"O, auntie, don't play any more! Talk sober! Talk honest! Did Horace
have his pockets picked?"
"Yes, he did," replied Aunt Madge, speaking in her natural tones, and
throwing off the pumpkin hood; "if you want the truth, he did."
"Why Aunt Madge Allen! It does not seem possible! Who picked my
pockets?"
"Some one who heard you talking so loud about your money."
"But how could it be taken out, and I not know it?"
"Quite as easily as it could be put back, and you not know it."
"That's true, Horace Clifford! Auntie put it back, and you never knew
it."
"So she did," said Horace, looking as bewildered as if he had been
whirling around with his eyes shut; "so she did--didn't she? But that
was because I was taken by surprise, seeing her without a tooth in her
head, you know."
"You have been taken by surprise twice to-day, then," said Aunt Madge,
demurely. "It is really refreshing, Horace, to find that such a sharp
young man _can_ be caught napping!"
"Well, I--I--I must have been thinking, of something else, auntie."
"So I conclude. And you must be thinking of something else still, or
you'd ask me--"
"O, yes, auntie; how did the thief happen to give it up? There, there,
you needn't say a word! I see it all in your eyes! You took the money
yourself. O, Aunt Madge!"
"Well, if that wasn't queer doings!" cried Dotty.
"Yes, it is quite contrary to my usual habits. I never robbed anybody
before. I hadn't the faintest idea I could do it without Horace's
knowledge."
"Why, auntie, I never was so astonished in my life!" said the youth,
looking greatly confused.
"I never heard of a person's being robbed that wasn't astonished," said
Aunt Madge, with a mischievous smile. "Will you be quite as sure of
yourself another time, think?"
"No, auntie, I shan't; that's a fact."
"That's my good, frank boy," said Aunt Madge, kissing his forehead. "And
he won't toss his head,--just this way,--like a young lord of creation,
when meddlesome aunties venture to give him advice."
Horace kissed Mrs. Allen's cheek rather thoughtfully, by way of reply.
"I don't see, Aunt Madge," said Prudy, "why you went back across the
river to put that piece in the paper, when you were the one that had the
money all the time."
"I did it to pacify Horace. He _knew_ his pockets hadn't been pieked.
Besides I felt guilty. It was rather cruel in me--wasn't it?--to let him
suffer so long."
"Not cruel a bit; good enough for me," cried Horace, with a generous
outburst. "You're just the jolliest woman, auntie--the jolliest woman!
There you are; you look so little and sweet! But if folks think they're
going to get ahead of you, why, just let 'em try it, say I!"
DEAR READERS: Horace was scarcely more astonished, when his pocket was
picked, than I am this minute, to find myself at the end of my book! I
had very much more to tell; but now it must wait till another time.
Meanwhile the Parlins and Cliffords are "climbing the dream tree." Let
us hope they are destined to meet with no more misfortunes during the
rest of their stay in New York.