FOUND.
“Oh, now,” cried King joyfully, “I can go and play with Elyot and
Barby!” He sprang up, and began to skip to the door.
“Oh, no, dear!” said Phronsie gently; “you had three words spelled
badly, you know. That column must be right, and then you can go.”
“O sister Phronsie!” King began to whine. And then he grumbled, “I wish
there weren’t any lessons in the world. I just hate ’em, I do.”
Joel thrust his head in the doorway. “May I come in?” he asked Phronsie.
“Yes, indeed,” she said with a smile.
“Well, well, King,” he said, going over to the little desk, and laying
his hand on it, “do you know I said just those words you’ve used, once
to Mamsie; and I wish I could forget it.”
“You said you hated books!” repeated King in amazement, and forgetting
to cry, a thing he had just made up his mind to do. “Why, you know just
everything.”
“Not quite that,” said Joel, bursting into a laugh; “but I know
considerably more because of what Mamsie said to me then.”
“And what did Mamsie say?” asked King, intensely interested, and
leaning across his little desk.
“She said study didn’t amount to much unless one was glad of the
chance, and that she would stick to it if she had to work herself to
skin and bone. I tell you, King, that just about killed me for Mamsie
to have to tell me that.”
King drew a long breath. “Do you s’pose she’d have to say so to me, if
she was here now?” he asked presently.
“I verily do,” said Joel, with a keen glance out of his black eyes
that looked so very like his mother’s, that King quailed immediately.
“I’ll--I’ll study, brother Joel,” he said, reaching for the neglected
spelling-book.
Joel gave him a pat on his stubby head. “Good for you,” he said.
Outside, Alexia was saying to Amy Loughead in the hall, “Oh! no use to
try to get a squint at Phronsie in the morning till ten o’clock.”
“What is she doing?” asked Amy.
“Oh! she hears King’s lessons for an hour, and studies with him; he’s
her care, you know, while Mrs. Fisher is away. But she might slip off
a few minutes once in a while, and he’d study by himself. But horses
can’t drag her away till the hour is up.”
“No,” said Amy slowly, “I shouldn’t think they could.”
“Umph!” said Alexia, remembering Polly’s frightful trials with her
little music-scholar. Then she added kindly, “Oh! of course not;
but we do want her just awfully this morning. We’re going to have a
driving-party down to the Glen; and of course no one can do anything
without Phronsie.”
“Oh! of course not,” said Amy.
“Well, it won’t make that tiresome clock go ahead any faster,” observed
Alexia, “to watch it,” tearing off her gaze from the tall clock in an
angle of the hall, “so I’m going off to find Cathie.”
Amy sat down in a niche by the window, and busied herself with a
little book she drew out of her pocket. How long she read she did not
know, but King rushed past in a whirlwind of delight. “Phronsie said
I could go! Hooray!” and Phronsie came out into the hall, followed by
Joel.
“Now,” said Phronsie, “we must hurry and get up the Glen driving-party.
Joel, please see that Johnson understands that the horses are brought
around for those who are to ride. And, O Joel! please see that the drag
is ready, and my cart.”
“Oh, yes! and the trap, and the whole list of them. You ride Firefly,
Phronsie, of course; and I’m going to take one of the black horses,
Polly said I could, and ride with you.”
“No,” said Phronsie; “Grace Tupper is to ride Firefly.”
“Oh, no, Phron!” protested Joel.
“I asked her to,” said Phronsie. “She used to ride a good deal, and she
hasn’t had a chance for a long while. I want her to, Joel.”
“Any other time would do just as well,” began Joel. But Phronsie looked
at him, and he hastened to add, “But of course it’s just as you please.
Well, then, I shall drive you.”
“Yes, so you may,” cried Phronsie, well pleased, “and Amy too. Take us
both, Joel, do.” She put her arm around the young girl affectionately.
Joel suppressed what he felt, and said, “All right,” and was just
rushing out, when in ran King.
“Phronsie, where are Elyot and Barby?”
“Just over the east terrace,” said Phronsie. “I saw them a little while
ago when you were at your lesson.”
“Well, they aren’t there now,” declared King in an injured tone. “Now,
I know they meant to run away from me.”
“Oh, no, King dear!” said Phronsie, putting a gentle hand on his hot
face.
“Well, where are they, then?” demanded King wrathfully.
“I’ll go and hunt for them,” said Phronsie merrily. “Come, Amy, let us
find those babies.”
So Amy Loughead and Phronsie picked up their skirts and sped over
the terraces, King racing on ahead, all three calling, “Bar-_by_!
Ely-_ot_!” at the top of their voices.
“There, they aren’t here, you can see for yourself,” said King,
turning a hot and flushed face upon them after a while.
“No,” said Phronsie, the pink color deserting her cheek, “I see they
are not, King.” Then, as he began to look frightened, she brightened
up, and said cheerily, “Do you run up to the house, Amy dear, and get
the horn from Mrs. Higby; then, King, you shall blow it, and that’ll
surely bring them back.”
“I’m going to get brother Joel first,” cried King, scampering off in
the direction of the stables.
“And tell him to set Patsy to hunting on the grounds,” called Phronsie
after him.
But despite the vigorous horn-blowing presently set up, King puffing
out his cheeks with all his might, and Patsy and two or three of
the other stable-men scouring the grounds, headed by Joel; and
notwithstanding that Phronsie and Amy ran hither and thither spreading
the alarm, till Polly and nearly all the guests in the house were just
so many searching-parties, exploring the little brown house and every
other place that would be likely to attract the children, no trace of
the two children could be found. And King threw himself disconsolately
into Phronsie’s arms, crying as if his heart would break.
Miss Salisbury was up on the front veranda; she so far forgot herself
as to wring her hands, when she thought no one observed her.
“O Miss Salisbury!” cried Amy Loughead, running up, “will you be so
very good as to tell Aunt Montgomery that I’m going down the road to
hunt for the children. I may not be back, you know, for some time.”
“Hey, what’s that?” cried Robert Bingley, sauntering along the side
veranda. He was waiting for the assembling of the driving-party, and
hadn’t heard a word of the bad news.
“The two children are lost,” said Amy briefly, before she ran off.
“Great Cæsar’s ghost!” cried Robert Bingley. “Excuse me, Miss
Salisbury,” as he now saw her; and clearing the veranda railing with
one bound, he struck off for the group on the lawn. Just below lay the
deserted mud-pies and the two little trowels.
Meantime Amy, gathering up her skirts with one shaking hand, skipped
down the road, only one feeling uppermost in her heart,--to find
Polly’s children. “I must, or I shall die,” sobbed Amy to herself, the
tears splashing over her pretty blue lawn gown.
An old scissors-grinder came down the road, ringing his bell violently.
“Oh, sir!” cried Amy, rushing up at him, “have you seen two little
children, a boy and a girl? they’re lost, and we don’t know where to
find them.” She wrung her hands now, and cried all over her dress.
“Hey?” cried the scissors-grinder.
“Oh! please, sir, do tell me if you have seen them,” begged Amy.
“I’m deef,” said the scissors-grinder, “and I don’t know what you’re
saying, Miss;” and he put his hand behind his ear, and opened his
mouth, as if in that way his hearing might be improved. So Amy got up
on tiptoe, and shouted it all into his ear; and he shook his head, and
declared he hadn’t seen a child on the road that morning, and he had
just come from Badgertown Centre.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “I’ll ring my bell, and
then I’ll cry, ‘Child lost’--no, ‘two children lo-ost,’ and then
everybody’ll know it, and look out for ’em.” So he went on, ringing
and jingling, and calling it out, while she flew down along the road.
“There isn’t any use in your doing this,” said a voice back of her as
she sped along; and Robert Bingley dashed up in a dog-cart. “Here, Miss
Loughead, jump in, and we’ll search for those two kids together.”
“They’re Polly’s children,” announced Amy, as if stating a wholly
new fact, and turning her sorrowful face, down which the tears were
chasing, to him; “and it will just kill her, Mr. Bingley, if they’re
not found.”
“Jump in,” said Mr. Bingley, extending his hand to help her; “excuse
my not getting out, but this horse is bound to go. There, now,” as she
was seated, “which way, of all the ways in the universe, would those
children be likely to take--that’s the question. Then I should take the
other.”
“The scissors-man said he hadn’t seen a child on this road; and he has
just come from Badgertown,” said Amy.
“I saw you interviewing him,” said Robert Bingley. “Well, as that
remarkably stupid individual did give utterance to that fact, I should
state my private opinion to be that those children took this very road.
He’s too stupid to know a child when he sees it.”
“Mr. Bingley,” cried Amy, all the color deserting her cheek, and in her
sudden terror she seized his arm, “oh, I’ve just thought--there’s the
pond, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” said Bingley, distressed at her fright, but
outwardly as cool as ice.
“Why, Spot Pond, they call it,” said Amy with a little gasp. “Phronsie
was telling me about it--what a pretty place it was, and how they would
take me fishing there, and”--
“Were the children about so that they heard you?” he asked abruptly.
“Yes--no, I believe not,” she said, racking her brain to remember; “but
they may have gone there just the same.”
“Where is it, do you know?” asked Bingley, slackening speed a little.
“It’s on this road. After you get by the schoolhouse, then turn to the
right--that is, it’s just a little off the road,” said Amy; “she told
me all about it at the breakfast-table. O Mr. Bingley, do let us go
there!”
“There’s the schoolhouse,” said Bingley, spying it a little distance
away; “so as the pond is a short bit away, we better try it, instead of
going home for assistance.” He gave the whip to the pony, and off they
spun.
But Spot Pond was still and lovely and serene. Not a ripple disturbed
its clear surface, and only a cat-bird screamed at them overhead.
“They couldn’t have walked clear down here by this time,” said Robert
Bingley; “besides, there are no little boot-tracks anywhere.” Amy
clasped her hands tightly together.
“Now I shall interview the schoolmarm,” said Robert Bingley, driving
back; and rapping on the schoolhouse door, he brought out the teacher,
book in hand, and a fringe of scholars, older and younger, around her.
“No,” she said to his question; “we haven’t any of us seen any little
children. Have you,” turning to some big boys who sat by the window,
“seen any go by?”
“No’m,” they said; and Bingley, feeling sure that nothing could have
escaped a boy at such a vantage-ground, set his teeth together hard,
and turned irresolutely.
Amy Loughead now sat up quite straight. “Oh! I can’t go home, Mr.
Bingley,” she said, “and see Polly, and not take the children to her.
Please take me into the town, and I’ll ask everybody there, in all the
shops, and along the streets and houses. Somebody must know.”
“Not a bad idea,” said Robert Bingley, whipping up, “and at least your
plan has action in it; and I confess myself that I don’t want to go
home either without something to show for it.”
It was well past midday when Amy, who had asked at every farmhouse
and each smarter residence within the village itself, now began to
traverse the High Street, where all the shops were crowded together as
a trading centre. Bingley had begged to get out and do this for her;
but she had refused so decidedly, and plodded on so persistently, that
he was forced to obey her, and he watched her little figure and pale,
set face, compassionately. She had just asked at the milliner’s, gay
with its spring and summer ribbons and flowers, and smart in the perky
hats adorning the big window, and had turned away despairingly, going
into the neighboring shops, and asking the same question, to leave
everybody sad and anxious to help, when they knew Mr. Jasper King’s
children were lost. Mechanically she turned up the next step of a
little shop, wedged in between two taller ones, and having on the sign
above the green door,--
J. BEEBE.
BOOTS AND SHOES.
[Illustration: There was Barby in a little wooden chair, eating bread
and butter with a very sticky face.]
“Have you seen,” she began, with no hope of success, “two little”--and
there was Barby in a little wooden chair, eating bread and butter with
a very sticky face, while Elyot was capering around the small shop on a
cane, an old man with big silver spectacles laughing to see him go.