Part 28 (1/2)

It roused the boy with a start. He gave a little shamefaced laugh.

”I don't see what made me do it,” he apologized.

”Well, we'd better go home as quick as we can get there,” decided Polly. ”What time do you s'pose it is?”

Neither could tell, but presently a town clock struck ten.

”That isn't so bad as I thought,” giggled Polly. ”But what will the folks say!”

They hurried along the path, till, suddenly, David halted.

”Did we pa.s.s this big fountain?” he questioned abruptly.

”I--don't remember it,” Polly faltered.

”We're on the wrong path,” he hastily concluded. ”Let's go back!”

They wheeled about, and were soon following a driveway that they were sure led to the park entrance. Yet they trudged on and on, and still the green expanse, dotted with trees, flower-beds, and shrubbery seemed to stretch endlessly before them.

”Seems 's if we ought to get somewhere pretty soon,” observed Polly, a plaintive note in her voice.

David replied absently. He was thinking hard. Where was that big stone gateway? He strained his eyes in a vain endeavor to discern it in the distance.

”What if we couldn't find our way out, and they had to come and look for us!” pondered Polly. ”Only they wouldn't know where to look!”

”Oh, we're not lost!” exclaimed David, in what he tried to make a fearless tone; but Polly, as well as he himself, knew it to be a fib, spoken only to hold their fast-going courage.

”Let's stop a minute, and see if we can't tell where we are,” proposed Polly, just as if that were not what they had been doing, at brief intervals, ever since they had pa.s.sed the unfamiliar fountain.

They had come to no satisfactory conclusion, and were still peering sharply into their surroundings, when Polly spied a figure in the path ahead.

”There's a boy!” she whispered. ”We can ask him.”

As the lad approached, something in his easy swing seemed familiar.

”It looks like--” began Polly--”why, it is! Oh, Cornelius!” she cried excitedly, as the light showed the unmistakable features of her friend of the convalescent ward. She sprang forward to greet him.

”Holy saints!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cornelius O'Shaughnessy. ”However come you kids out here, this time o' night?”

They told their story in breathless s.n.a.t.c.hes, omitting only what had brought them hither.

”Come f'r a walk, did ye!” sniffed Cornelius. ”Wal, ye've had it sure!

Now, see here! I've got to go over on North Second Street to git a receipt f'r some cake Cousin Ellen give my mother, or I'll ketch it when the show's out--that's where my mother is now! She says, the last thing, 'Cornelius, mind yer don't forgit to go up after that receipt, f'r I want to make th' cake in th' mornin'!' I says, 'Sure I won't!'--and I never thought of it again till just as I was goin' up to bed! It happened to pop into my head, and if I didn't hustle down those stairs! An' here I be! Now ye just sit down and wait, and I'll go 'long back wid ye.”

The boy darted into the shadows and was lost. Polly and David felt more alone than before.

”Queer, we should meet him 'way out here, at this time!” David had lowered his voice, as if fearful of being overheard.

”He came just to find us,” purred Polly. ”What a nice boy he is!”

”Don't talk so loud!” cautioned David.