Muffs tried to remember something about the Public Notice. It was
something important that she should have remembered before. Tommy had
told her. He had told her in the middle of the night when she was too
sleepy to listen. Now, after she had mixed things up and frightened
everybody, she remembered all about it. She had told Mrs. Tyler that
Tommy went to see a fire when it wasn’t a fire at all but only his
lantern shining in her face. He had really gone to the Post Office to
fix up the Public Notice before people came for their mail. He hadn’t
hurried right back the way he said he would and, with things appearing
and disappearing the way they did, something terrible might have
happened to him.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” thought Muffs. “What a perfectly awful mess! What
am I going to do?”
She looked at the side of Mrs. Tyler’s face and wished that she would
smile. Maybe she’d dare tell her then. She looked at Mary, walking
along on the other side of her mother, and knew she couldn’t tell her
either. Mary would argue and Mrs. Tyler would never believe that she
had forgotten. It would be like her story about the rabbit. She guessed
nobody ever would believe what she said any more. After that queer
expedition to the ends of the earth she and Mary and Tommy (if they
found him) would be like three children in a fairy tale. Only it was
easier for Mary because she wasn’t afraid to argue with grown-ups.
New York and her own mother seemed very far away to Muffs as she
hurried along the road, trying to match her small steps to Mary’s and
Mrs. Tyler’s. She felt the way she had done when she broke the vase and
when Mr. and Mrs. Lippett scolded her for having Bunny Bright Eyes in
her hat. Little girls were supposed to know so much when they were away
from home. And it was hard to tell dreams from real things, especially
when the real things were stranger than the dreams.
“We might--we might just look for Tommy in the Post Office,” Muffs
suggested timidly as they turned onto the big road.
“Why the Post Office?” Mrs. Tyler asked.
“Maybe--there wasn’t a fire. Maybe he really went to the Post Office to
fix up the Public Notice.”
“But you said he went to see a fire.”
“I thought he did--and then I remembered he didn’t.”
“You mean you made up what you told me about the fire?” demanded Mrs.
Tyler.
Muffs nodded. She didn’t think it would do any good to keep on saying
she thought it was true at first.
Mrs. Tyler’s-lips went into a straight line. “What is this Public
Notice?” she asked. “It must have been dreadfully important that Tommy
should get up in the middle of the night and go to fix it.”
“It was dreadf’ly important,” Muffs declared. “He had to get there
before people came for their mail. You see, we put up the notice and
forgot to write our names on it.”
“Did we?” exclaimed Mary. “That’s so,” she remembered. “We did.
Then that must be where Tommy went. He was running just as if he had
forgotten something dreadfully important.”
The Public Notice was all fixed up when they looked for it in the Post
Office. It had the three names on it:
[Illustration:
M. MUFFET T. TYLER M. TYLER.
]
There was also a P. S. about Bunny Bright Eyes:
[Illustration:
IF ENNYONE LOST A RABBiT
WE FOUND HiM IN THE GIDEZ HAT.
]
But there was no sign of Tommy.
Farther up the road were shops and stores and the grange hall. Tommy
might be playing there. Or possibly in the school yard or along the
road that went up Lookoff Mountain. The air was misty and smelled queer
but Muffs wouldn’t let herself think of fires any more. Tommy was lost
and it was partly her fault that Mary looked so serious and Mrs. Tyler
so worried.
Then they came in sight of the tailor shop, or what had been the tailor
shop. The queer, crooked smokestack wasn’t there any more and the
roof had a gaping hole right through the shingles. Just about all the
children in the valley were crowded around and among them was Tommy.
“I saw you!” he cried, and came running toward them. “Where were you
going?”
“Looking for you,” his mother answered. “Tommy! Tommy! What happened to
you?”
“I was watching the fire.”
“The fire! What fire?”
“The tailor shop fire. I turned in the alarm,” said the little boy
proudly.
Muffs was speechless except for one excited squeal. Things were growing
queerer and queerer. Here she had told a story that she thought was
true and just when she remembered that it was only a story, up bobs
Tommy saying that he has been to see a fire after all.
Mrs. Tyler drew him closer to her. “You brave boy!” she said. “Tell me
how you knew.”
“That’s easy,” he answered. “I smelled something burning. You know how
it smells when you forget the iron and leave it on the board too long.
Well, it smelled like that only worse and pretty soon I saw some smoke
coming out of the roof of the tailor shop. I waked up the grocer and
the man in the gas station and we stayed to help fight the fire. I
guess you’d want to help fight a fire if you had turned in the alarm
your very own self and everybody thought you were a hero.”
“I guess I would,” his mother agreed and patted his shoulder.
It was all a little confusing and she was anxious to hear more about
the Public Notice so Tommy told her about the glasses and how they had
found them in the woods and put them on the Guide’s twig nose. He took
them out of his pocket to show her and she agreed that someone might
need them badly.
“Everything would have been all right,” she said, “if Muffs hadn’t said
you went to see a fire.”
“Well, he did, didn’t he?” Mary asked.
“Yes, but Muffs didn’t know it. She had us all worried with her story
of lights and cars and fires. I didn’t know _what_ to make of it.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” said Tommy. “I guess I scared her with my lantern
shining in her eyes. She went back to sleep while I was talking and
prob’ly dreamed part of it. Don’t you s’pose we could go back and just
let Muffs and Mary see where the fire was? It’s all been burned black
inside and it’s wet from the pails of water and shines like anybody’s
new shoes.”
Mrs. Tyler laughed. “I guess we could. I’ll tell your father and Donald
that you’re safe. I had them out hunting for you. Then I’ll stop in at
the Lippett’s. There was something I wanted to talk over with them----”
“Oh, Mom! Couldn’t we play around where the fire was while you talk?”
Muffs was afraid to coax. She couldn’t believe it was true until she
saw Mrs. Tyler walking on down the road. She had left them to play
alone.
[Illustration]