Part 19 (1/2)

Pinkney, accepting the supposition as a fact on the instant. ”What will I ever say to Sam'l to-night when he comes home?”

”Well,” said Tess, encouragingly, ”I guess he won't spank Sammy for doing that. At least, I shouldn't think he would.”

The older folk did not pay much attention to her philosophy. They were all more or less worried, including Mrs. MacCall and Aunt Sarah. The latter displayed more trouble over Dot's absence than one might have expected, knowing the maiden lady's usual unattached manner of looking at all domestic matters.

Ruth, feeling more responsibility after all than anybody else--and perhaps with more anxious love in her heart for Dot than the others, for had she not had the princ.i.p.al care of Dot since babyhood?--could not be convinced now that all they could do was to wait.

”There must be some way of tracing them,” she declared. ”If they were over on Meadow Street somebody must have seen them after they left Mrs.

Kranz's store.”

”That is the place to take up their trail, Ruth,” Luke said. ”Tell me how to find the store and I'll go down there and make enquiries.”

”I will go with you,” the eldest Corner House girl said quickly. ”I know the people there and you don't.”

”I'll go, too!” cried Agnes, wiping her eyes.

”No,” said her sister decisively. ”No use in more going. You remain at home with Tess and Cecile. I am much obliged to you, Luke. We'll start at once.”

”And without your lunch?” cried Mrs. MacCall.

Ruth had no thought for lunch, and Luke denied all desire for the midday meal. ”Come on!” he prophesied boldly, ”we'll find those kids before we eat.”

”Oh!” sighed Agnes, ”I wish Neale O'Neil had not gone fis.h.i.+ng. Then he could have chased around in the automobile and found those naughty children in a hurry.”

”He would not know where to look for them any more than we do,” her sister said. ”All ready, Luke.”

They set off briskly for the other side of town. Luke said:

”Wish I knew how to run an auto myself. That's going to be my very next addition to the sum of my knowledge. I could have taken you out in your car myself.”

”Not without a license in this county,” said Ruth. ”And we'll do very well. I _hope_ nothing has happened to these children.”

”Of course nothing has,” he said comfortingly. ”That is, nothing that a little soap and water and a spanking won't cure.”

”No. Dot has never been punished in that way.”

”But Sammy has--oft and again,” chuckled Luke. ”And of course he is to blame for this escapade.”

”I'm not altogether sure of that,” said the just Ruth, who knew Dot's temperament if anybody did. ”It doesn't matter which is the most to blame. I want to find them.”

But this was a task not easy to perform, as they soon found out after reaching Meadow Street. Certainly Mrs. Kranz remembered all about the children coming to her store that morning--all but one thing. She stuck to it that Dot had said they were going on a picnic. The word ”pirates”

was strange to the ear of the German woman, so having misunderstood it the picnic idea was firmly fixed in her mind.

Maria Maroni had been too busy to watch which way Dot and Sammy went; nor did her father remember this important point. After leaving the store the runaways seemed to have utterly disappeared.

Ruth did not admit this woful fact until she had interviewed almost everybody she knew in the neighborhood. Sadie Goronofsky and her brothers and sisters scattered in all directions to find trace of Dot and Sammy. There was a mild panic when one child came shrieking into Mrs. Kranz's store that a little girl with a dog had been seen over by the blacksmith shop, and that she had been carried off on a ca.n.a.lboat.

”Them ca.n.a.lboatmen would steal anything, you bet,” said Sadie Goronofsky, with confidence. ”They're awful pad men--sure!”