ANOTHER LOSS
Mr. Keller stood still near the spot where he had pulled his wife to her
feet. With sharp eyes he looked all about the sand.
“What you all doin’?” asked Trouble, who had wandered off down the beach
and who now came running back. “Is you all makin’ a hole for a nellifunt
to get a drink?”
“No, Trouble!” answered Janet.
“Don’t come here, little man! Stay where you are a few minutes!” called
Mr. Keller.
“What’s matter?” William wanted to know, for he seemed to feel that
something had happened.
“Mrs. Keller has lost her ring,” explained Ted.
“And I think the best way to find it will be to look about on the sand
before it is trampled down out of sight,” added Mr. Keller. He wanted to
explain to the children.
“Please don’t any one move,” he begged, as, after another look all
around where his wife had been sitting, he stepped a little to one side
so that he might look behind her. “All of you keep still!”
“Is you all playin’ a game?” asked Trouble, who did not seem quite to
understand what had happened.
“Yes, it’s a sort of game,” answered Janet, for Mrs. Keller was feeling
too sad to answer and her husband was busy looking about. Janet thought
this was the best way of making Trouble stand still. And so it proved,
for he said:
“Aw right! I stay here an’ play game. Has it got a nellifunt in it?” he
wanted to know.
“No, dear, no elephant,” answered Mrs. Keller, with a sigh. “I should
hope not,” she went on. “If an elephant trampled over the sand I should
never see my dear wedding ring again. Oh, I don’t see how it dropped off
without my noticing it at once.”
“Don’t worry! We’ll get it back for you right away!” said her husband.
“It must be lying right on top of the sand. That’s why I don’t want any
of you to walk around, because you might step on it,” he told Janet and
Ted. “I can watch where I set my feet so I won’t tread on it.”
He looked about carefully, casting his eyes over every inch of sand in a
circle about his wife. She, too, looked as well as she could in front of
her, but Mr. Keller moved all around her.
“I don’t see it,” he said, at last. “Suppose you three walk away from
the spot, in a straight line, looking wherever you set your feet to make
sure you don’t step on the ring,” he said.
“Do you mean us?” asked Ted.
“Yes, you and your sister.”
“What about Trouble?” asked Janet.
“You go over where he is and stay by him. Then he won’t trample over the
spots I want to search,” Mr. Keller answered.
The Curlytops walked carefully, looking at each spot of sand before
putting down their feet. But they did not see the ring, though they were
very anxious to find it. Mrs. Keller’s face looked so sad. Tears were
coming from her eyes now. And the Curlytops were sure she would be
happier if her wedding ring could be found.
But though Mr. Keller looked and looked again he did not find it. His
wife and the children were now away from the spot where it was supposed
the gold band had been dropped in the sand. But the wedding circle was
not in sight, or it would have been picked up.
“Well, I don’t see it,” said Mr. Keller, with a sigh. “Now I shall have
to begin poking in the sand.”
“Poke very carefully,” urged his wife, “or you may cover it so deeply
that it will never be seen.”
“I’ll be careful,” he promised. “I’m sorry to keep you children
waiting,” he added; “but I’ll soon be with you, Ted, and help you make
that sand-mill wheel.”
“Oh, I don’t mind waiting,” answered the Curlytop boy politely. “Don’t
you want me to help hunt for the ring?” he asked.
“Thank you, but I think it better that I search alone for a while,” Mr.
Keller replied. “While extra pairs of eyes are valuable, too many feet
might do damage. I think I can pick up the ring very soon.”
He knelt down on the sand, near the spot where his wife had been
sitting, and, picking up handful after handful of the silvery grains, he
let them run out in a stream, hoping thus to pick up his wife’s ring.
Anxiously the Curlytops watched him. Anxiously Mrs. Keller looked on,
now and then wiping away a tear from her eyes. Anxiously, too, Trouble
looked on. At last he murmured.
“This funny game! Is he playin’ nellifunt?” he asked. For Mr. Keller,
crawling around in the sand on his hands and knees, did seem to be
playing some game.
“No, he isn’t playing elephant,” answered Ted, in a low voice. “Don’t
you want us to help look?” he called, more loudly.
“Perhaps it would be just as well if you did—now,” Mr. Keller replied.
“The ring isn’t on top of the sand; that’s sure. I’ve looked all over,
carefully.”
“Oh, but where can it be?” asked his wife.
“I think it must have rolled into some little hole, perhaps, and have
been covered over. Or you may have pressed your hand or foot on it and
thrust it into the sand. The children can help look now.”
“I know how to do it,” declared Janet. “You must pick up a little sand
at a time and then put it down in another place, if you don’t find the
ring.”
“That’s the idea,” Mr. Keller told the little Curlytop girl. “If you put
the sand you take up back in the same place, you can’t tell where it is
in a few minutes, and you’ll be going over the same sand twice.”
“We ought to mark off this place with stones or sticks or something,”
suggested Ted.
“What for?” his sister wanted to know.
“So we would remember where it is,” Ted answered. “Once when we came to
the seashore before, I lost a rubber ball, and I couldn’t find it. The
coast guard told me to put some sticks up near the place I lost it, and
look the next day.”
“Did you find your ball?” asked Mrs. Keller, who was now stooping down,
picking up handfuls of sand and letting it run through her fingers
again.
“Yes, I found it,” Ted answered.
“I think his idea is a good one,” remarked Mr. Keller. “We may not find
this ring to-day, and we may have to search to-morrow. It is hard to
come back to the same place on the sand unless you mark it in some way.
All sand looks alike.”
“I’ll get some sticks and stones,” offered Ted.
“And I’ll help look for the ring,” offered his sister.
There were many pieces of driftwood on the beach, and also some greenish
stones, worn smooth and polished by the constant washing of the waves
and wet sand over them. Ted quickly made a big circle about the
searchers, putting here a stick and there a stone, until the place was
well marked and could be easily found again.
“It’s a good thing it’s above the high tide,” said Mr. Keller. “If we
had been sitting nearer the water the ring would be lost forever. For
the tide would cover the place and might, perhaps, wash the ring out to
sea.”
“Oh, I wonder if I shall ever get it back!” sighed his wife.
“I think so,” he answered, hopefully.
But it was a vain hope. Though Mr. and Mrs. Keller searched carefully,
and the Curlytops helped, taking up and casting aside handful after
handful of sand, the golden band did not show gleaming in the bright
sun.
As each handful of sand was picked up, it was tossed as far to one side
as possible, without the circle of stones and sticks made by Ted. In
this way the same sand would not be looked over twice.
“I’m afraid we shall have to give it up—at least, for the time being,”
said Mr. Keller, at last.
“Oh, do you mean I shall never find my ring?” cried his wife.
“I wouldn’t say that,” he replied. “It certainly is somewhere around
here.”
“But how can we find it?” she sighed.
“I shall have to get men with shovels, and we will sift every bit of
sand within the circle Ted made,” he went on. “It will take a little
time, but we shall find it. I’ll go back to the cottage and see about
hiring some men. I’m afraid your sand-mill wheel must wait, Teddy,” he
went on.
“Oh, I don’t mind waiting,” Ted answered good-naturedly. “And I’ll help
you sift the sand,” he offered.
“The sooner that is done the better,” his wife remarked. “I never
thought I should lose my wedding ring! It is terrible! I can’t tell you
how sad I am!”
“Never mind! Never mind,” consoled her husband. “We shall find it later,
I’m sure.”
He arose from the sand, brushing the grains from his hands and from his
trousers. Then he thrust one hand into his right trouser’s pocket. As he
did so, Ted noticed a queer look come over Mr. Keller’s face. It was
almost the same kind of look his wife had borne when she first noticed
the loss of her ring.
“Oh! They’re gone!” gasped Mr. Keller.
“What is?” asked his wife.
“My keys—my bunch of keys! The office Keys and the keys to Mr. Narr’s
safe and his bank deposit box. My keys are gone!” and Mr. Keller began
searching frantically in all his pockets.
“You must have dropped them while you were looking for my lost wedding
ring,” said Mrs. Keller.
“I think I did,” her husband answered. “The keys ought to be right here
on the sand.”
“A bunch of keys is easier to find than a wedding ring,” commented
Janet.
“They ought to be in plain sight,” added her brother.
But though they all eagerly scanned the surface of the sand the keys
were not in sight. They had vanished with the wedding ring. It was a
great mystery.
“This is too bad!” said Mr. Keller. “If Mr. Narr finds out about this
there may be trouble. I might even lose my position in his office.”
“Don’t say that!” begged his wife.
“But it’s true,” he murmured. “You don’t know what a terrible man he is
when he gets angry. Oh, I must find those keys—and your wedding ring! I
must find them!”
“We’ll help!” offered the Curlytops. They began crawling around the
sand. But the second search had no more than begun before a voice was
heard calling:
“Ted! Janet! Where are you?”