DOUBTS AND FEARS
"Well, what kept you so long?" asked Peg, impatiently, as Ida rejoined
her at the corner of the street. "I thought you were going to stay all
the forenoon. And Where's your gingerbread?"
"He wouldn't let me have it," answered Ida.
"And why wouldn't he let you have it?" said Peg.
"Because he said the money wasn't good."
"Stuff and nonsense! It's good enough. However, it's no matter. We'll go
somewhere else."
"But he said the money I gave him last week wasn't good, and I promised
to bring him another to-morrow, or he wouldn't have let me go."
"Well, where are you going to get your dollar?"
"Why, won't you give it to me?" said the child.
"Catch me at such nonsense!" said Mrs. Hardwick, contemptuously. "I
ain't quite a fool. But here we are at another shop. Go in and see if
you can do any better there. Here's the money."
"Why, it's the same bill I gave you."
"What if it is?"
"I don't want to pass bad money."
"Tut! What hurt will it do?"
"It's the same as stealing."
"The man won't lose anything. He'll pass it off again."
"Somebody'll have to lose it by and by," said Ida.
"So you've taken up preaching, have you?" said Peg, sneeringly. "Maybe
you know better than I what is proper to do. It won't do for you to be
so mighty particular, and so you'll find out, if you stay with me long."
"Where did you get the dollar?" asked Ida; "and how is it you have so
many of them?"
"None of your business. You mustn't pry into the affairs of other
people. Are you going to do as I told you?" she continued, menacingly.
"I can't," answered Ida, pale but resolute.
"You can't!" repeated Peg, furiously. "Didn't you promise to do whatever
I told you?"
"Except what was wicked," interposed Ida.
"And what business have you to decide what is wicked? Come home with
me."
Peg seized the child's hand, and walked on in sullen silence,
occasionally turning to scowl upon Ida, who had been strong enough, in
her determination to do right, to resist successfully the will of the
woman whom she had so much reason to dread.
Arrived at home, Peg walked Ida into the room by the shoulder. Dick was
lounging in a chair.
"Hillo!" said he, lazily, observing his wife's frowning face. "What's
the gal been doin', hey?"
"What's she been doing?" repeated Peg. "I should like to know what she
hasn't been doing. She's refused to go in and buy gingerbread of the
baker."
"Look here, little gal," said Dick, in a moralizing vein, "isn't this
rayther undootiful conduct on your part? Ain't it a piece of
ingratitude, when Peg and I go to the trouble of earning the money to
pay for gingerbread for you to eat, that you ain't even willin' to go in
and buy it?"
"I would just as lieve go in," said Ida, "if Peg would give me good
money to pay for it."
"That don't make any difference," said the admirable moralist. "It's
your dooty to do just as she tells you, and you'll do right. She'll take
the risk."
"I can't," said the child.
"You hear her!" said Peg.
"Very improper conduct!" said Dick, shaking his head in grave reproval.
"Little gal, I'm ashamed of you. Put her in the closet, Peg."
"Come along," said Peg, harshly. "I'll show you how I deal with those
that don't obey me."
So Ida was incarcerated once more in the dark closet. Yet in the midst
of her desolation, child as she was, she was sustained and comforted by
the thought that she was suffering for doing right.
When Ida failed to return on the appointed day, the Hardings, though
disappointed, did not think it strange.
"If I were her mother," said the cooper's wife, "and had been parted
from her for so long, I should want to keep her as long as I could. Dear
heart! how pretty she is and how proud her mother must be of her!"
"It's all a delusion," said Rachel, shaking her head, solemnly. "It's
all a delusion. I don't believe she's got a mother at all. That Mrs.
Hardwick is an impostor. I know it, and told you so at the time, but you
wouldn't believe me. I never expect to set eyes on Ida again in this
world."
The next day passed, and still no tidings of Jack's ward. Her young
guardian, though not as gloomy as Aunt Rachel, looked unusually serious.
There was a cloud of anxiety even upon the cooper's usually placid face,
and he was more silent than usual at the evening meal. At night, after
Jack and his aunt had retired, he said, anxiously: "What do you think is
the cause of Ida's prolonged absence, Martha?"
"I can't tell," said his wife, seriously. "It seems to me, if her mother
wanted to keep her longer it would be no more than right that she should
drop us a line. She must know that we would feel anxious."
"Perhaps she is so taken up with Ida that she can think of no one else."
"It may be so; but if we neither see Ida to-morrow, nor hear from her, I
shall be seriously troubled."
"Suppose she should never come back," suggested the cooper, very
soberly.
"Oh, husband, don't hint at such a thing," said his wife.
"We must contemplate it as a possibility," said Timothy, gravely,
"though not, as I hope, as a probability. Ida's mother has an undoubted
right to her."
"Then it would be better if she had never been placed in our charge,"
said Martha, tearfully, "for we should not have had the pain of parting
with her."
"Not so, Martha," her husband said, seriously. "We ought to be grateful
for God's blessings, even if He suffers us to retain them but a short
time. And Ida has been a blessing to us all, I am sure. The memory of
that can't be taken from us, Martha. There's some lines I came across in
the paper to-night that express just what I've been sayin'. Let me find
them."
The cooper put on his spectacles, and hunted slowly down the columns of
the daily paper till he came to these beautiful lines of Tennyson, which
he read aloud:
"'I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.'"
"There, wife," he said, as he laid down the paper; "I don't know who
writ them lines, but I'm sure it's some one that's met with a great
sorrow and conquered it."
"They are beautiful," said his wife, after a pause; "and I dare say
you're right, Timothy; but I hope we mayn't have to learn the truth of
them by experience. After all, it isn't certain but that Ida will come
back."
"At any rate," said her husband, "there is no doubt that it is our duty
to take every means that we can to recover Ida. Of course, if her mother
insists upon keepin' her, we can't say anything; but we ought to be sure
of that before we yield her up."
"What do you mean, Timothy?" asked Martha.
"I don't know as I ought to mention it," said the cooper. "Very likely
there isn't anything in it, and it would only make you feel more
anxious."
"You have already aroused my anxiety. I should feel better if you would
speak out."
"Then I will," said the cooper. "I have sometimes been tempted," he
continued, lowering his voice, "to doubt whether Ida's mother really
sent for her."
"How do you account for the letter, then?"
"I have thought--mind, it is only a guess--that Mrs. Hardwick may have
got somebody to write it for her."
"It is very singular," murmured Martha.
"What is singular?"
"Why, the very same thought has occurred to me. Somehow, I can't help
feeling a little distrustful of Mrs. Hardwick, though perhaps unjustly.
What object can she have in getting possession of the child?"
"That I can't conjecture; but I have come to one determination."
"What is that?"
"Unless we learn something of Ida within a week from the time she left
here, I shall go on to Philadelphia, or else send Jack, and endeavor to
get track of her."