THE MORNING AFTER.
Bright rose the sun the next morning over the leafy tops of Long Woods,
and smiled upon the pleasant valley.
It found many a trace of the previous day's devastation,--trees uprooted
or twisted off at their trunks, branches and limbs broken and scattered,
fences blown down, and more than one man's buildings unroofed or
demolished.
It found Peakslow, accompanied by the two older boys, walking about his
private and particular pile of ruins, in a gloomy and bewildered state
of mind, as if utterly at a loss to know where the repair of such
tremendous damages should begin. And (the sun itself must have been
somewhat astonished) it found Mrs. Peakslow and the younger children,
five in number, comfortably quartered in Lord Betterson's "castle."
It also had glimpses of Rufe, with light and jolly face, driving home by
prairie and grove, alone in the one-horse wagon.
Link ran out to meet him, swinging his cap and shouting for the news.
"Good news!" Rufe shouted back, while still far up the road. "Tell the
folks!" And he held up the pocket-book.
It was good news indeed which he brought; but the mystery at the bottom
of it all was a mystery still.
The family gathered around, with intense interest, while he told his
story and displayed Rad's pantaloons.
"The eighty dollars, which you had counted out,--you remember,
father,--was loose in the pocket. I left that with Jack; he will send it
to Chicago to-day. The rest of the money, I believe, is all here in the
pocket-book."
"And you've heard nothing of Radcliff?" said Mr. Betterson.
"Not a word. Jack made me stop with him over night; and I should have
come home the way we went, and looked for Rad, if it hadn't been so far;
we must have driven twelve or fifteen miles in that roundabout chase."
"Some accident must certainly have happened to Radcliff," said Mr.
Betterson. And much wonder and many conjectures were expressed by the
missing youth's not very unhappy relatives.
"I bet I know!" said Link. "He drove so fast he overtook the tornado,
and it twisted him out of his breeches, and hung him up in a tree
somewhere!"
An ingenious theory, which did not, however, obtain much credence with
the family.
"One thing seems to be proved, and I am very glad," said Vinnie. "It
was not Zeph who took Jack's compass."
"Rad must have taken that, to spite Jack, and hid it somewhere near the
road in the timber, where it would be handy if he ever wanted to make
off with it; that's what Jack thinks," said Rufe. "Then, as he was
driving past the spot, he put it into the buggy again."
"Maybe he intended to set up for a surveyor somewhere," Wad remarked.
"He must have taken another pair of trousers with him."
"I am sure he didn't," said Cecie.
"And even if he did," said Rufe, "that wouldn't account for his leaving
the money in the pocket."
The family finally settled down upon a theory which had been first
suggested by Jack,--that in fording the river Rad had caught his wheels
in the tree-tops or timbers of the ruined bridge, and, to keep his lower
garments dry, had taken them off and left them in the buggy, while he
waded in to remove the rubbish, when the horse had somehow got away from
him, and gone home. It also seemed quite probable that Rad himself had
become entangled in drift-wood, and been drowned.
"Feed the mare, boys," said Lord Betterson. "As soon as she is well
rested, I'll drive up to the broken bridge, and see if any discoveries
can be made."
Meanwhile, whatever Radcliff's fate, it did not prevent the family from
rejoicing over the recovery of the lost money. And now Rufe's attention
was called to another happy circumstance, one which promised to be to
them a source of deeper and more lasting satisfaction.
Cecie could walk!
Yes, the marvellous effects of the previous day's events were still
manifest in the case of the little invalid. Either the tremendous
excitement, thrilling and rousing her whole system, or the electric
shock which accompanied the whirlwind, or the exertions she felt
compelled to make when Rad ran off with the money,--or all combined (for
the doctors were divided in opinion on the subject),--had overcome the
paralysis of her limbs, which a long course of medical treatment had
failed to remove.
The family physician, who chanced to come over from the Mills that day,
maintained that what he had been doing for the injured spine, the source
of Cecie's troubles, had prepared the way for this result; while
neighbor Peakslow, when he heard the news, grunted, and said he "guessed
the gal could 'a' walked all the time if she had only thought she could,
or wanted to very much." All which made Cecie smile. She only knew that
she was cured, and was too proud and glad to care much what was said of
her.