A PERPLEXING AFFAIR.
When Rico entered the cottage that evening it was later than usual, for
he had spent a full half-hour in singing the hymn. As he went in, his
cousin came flying towards him.
"Are you beginning in this style already?" she called out. "The supper
stood waiting for you a whole hour: now I have put it away. Go to your
bedroom; and if you turn out a good-for-nothing and a scamp, it is no
fault of mine. I don't know any thing that I had not rather do than look
after a boy like you."
Rico never answered a single word, no matter how much his cousin might
scold at him; but this evening he looked at her, and said,--
"I can get out of your way, cousin."
She shoved the bolt in on the house-door with such violence that the
door shook, and went into the sitting-room, slamming that door behind
her. Rico went up into his dark little bedroom.
On the following day, as all the big family in the other cottage
were eating their supper,--the parents, the grandmother, and all the
children,--the cousin came running over, and called out from the
door to ask if they knew any thing about Rico: she had no idea where
he could be.
"He will come fast enough when it is time for supper," replied the
father quietly.
The cousin entered the room. She had been quite sure that the lad was
there, and she expected him to come out if she only stood at the door
and asked for him.
Now she went on to tell them that he had not made his appearance at
breakfast, nor at dinner-time, and that he had not been in bed the
previous night, for she had found it as she had left it; and she
believed that he must have gone away very early in the morning before
daybreak, wandering about as he was in the habit of doing, for the bolt
was pushed aside on the house-door when she went to open it. She thought
at first that she must have forgotten to bolt it the night before in her
anger, for nobody knew how angry she had been.
"Something has happened to him," said the father, quite unmoved. "He has
probably fallen into some cleft up there on the mountain: it often
happens to little boys who go climbing about everywhere.
"You ought to have spoken of it earlier in the day," he went on slowly.
"We shall have to go to look for him, and in the night you can't see
any thing."
At these words the cousin broke out into a terrible uproar. She expected
there would be all sorts of fault found with her; that was always the
way when you had suffered for years, and never said any thing about it.
"Nobody would ever believe," she said,--and spoke a truthful word then,
at least,--"what a sly, cunning, deceitful boy that is, and what a life
he has led me these four years. He will turn out a regular vagabond, a
tramp, a disgraceful creature."
The grandmother had ceased eating for several minutes. She now rose from
the table, and went up to the cousin, who was talking very noisily.
"Stop, neighbor, stop," she said; and repeated it twice without effect.
"I know Rico very well; I have always known him ever since he was
brought here to his grandmother. If I were in your place, I would not
say another word, but stop to think whether the lad, to whom perhaps
something dreadful has happened, and who may be standing up there before
God at this moment, may not have some complaint against
somebody,--somebody who had done him a heavy injury, all deserted as he
is, with her cruel words."
Since Rico's disappearance, the way the lad looked at her on that
last evening had occurred several times to the cousin's mind, and how
he said,--
"I can easily get out of your way."
That was why she had made such a noise about it, in order to drown these
words. Now she did not dare to look the grandmother in the face, but
said that she must go: perhaps Rico might be at the cottage by this
time, which she would very gladly have had come true.
From this day forward the cousin never spoke another word against Rico
in the grandmother's hearing; nor, indeed, did she often speak of him at
all. She believed, as did all the neighbors far and near, that the lad
was dead; and she was thankful that nobody knew about the words he had
said to her on that last evening.
The next morning after this event was made known, Stineli's father went
out to the thrashing-floor and picked himself out a stout stick. He said
that he would call some of the neighbors together: they must go search
for the lad somewhere towards the glaciers and up by the ravines.
Stineli crept out after him, and he said, when he noticed her, "That is
right, come and help me to search; you can get into the corners better
than I can."
At last, after they had found a big beanpole, Stineli ventured to say,
"But father, if Rico went along the high-road, then he could not fall
into any thing, could he?"
"Oh, perhaps he might," replied her father. "Such thoughtless boys as he
often stray off the road, and fall into ravines and places: they don't
know themselves where they are going, and he was always moving about
more or less."
That this was true of Rico nobody knew better than Stineli; and she
became dreadfully anxious from that time forth, which anxiety increased
every day to such a degree that she could neither eat nor sleep for
sorrow, and did her work, day after day, as if she did not know what she
was about.
Rico was not found: nobody had seen any thing of him. They ceased to
search for him, and the folks soon began to find consolation in the
thought, "It is just as well for the little fellow, after all; he was
forsaken, and had no one to care for him."