Part 12 (1/2)
Twice he almost seized her brown wings, but she slipped through his hands. Had the hen been silent she would easily have escaped him, but she cackled as she flew, and that guided him along. His shoe came off, next the hammer flew out of his hand, but he did not stop for either.
Running, plunging, diving, on he went, the frightened hen just before, till at last a root tripped him up and he fell forward on his face. The hen vanished into the thicket. Her voice died away in distance. By the time Archie had picked himself up there was not even the rustling of a leaf to show which way she had gone.
He rose from the ground disconsolate. His nose bled from the fall, and there was a b.u.mp on his forehead, which ached painfully. A strong desire to cry came over him. But, like a brave fellow, he would not give way to it, and sat down under a tree to rest and decide what was to be done next.
”I'll go back again to my house,” was his decision. But where _was_ the house? He ran this way, that way; the paths all looked alike. The house had vanished like the hen. Archie had not the least idea which way he ought to turn to find it.
One big tear did force its way to his eyes when this fact became evident. House and hen, it was hard to lose both at once. The hammer, too, was gone. Only the spade remained, and, armed with this, Archie, like a true hero, started to find a good place and build another house.
Surely nowhere, save in the histories of the great Boston and Chicago fires, is record to be found of parallel pluck and determination!
House-building was not half so easy in this part of the wood where he then was, for the bushes were thick and stood closely together. Their branches hung so low, that, small as Archie was, he had to bend forward and walk almost double to avoid having his eyes scratched by them. At last, in the middle of a circle of junipers, he found a tolerably free s.p.a.ce which he thought would do. The ground, however, was set thick with sharp uncomfortable stones, and the first thing needed was to get rid of them.
So for an hour, with fingers and spade, Archie dug and delved among the stones. It was hard work enough, but at last he cleared a place somewhat larger than his small body, which he carpeted with soft mosses brought from another part of the wood. This done, he lay down flat on his back, and looked dreamily up at the pretty green roof made by the juniper boughs overhead. ”I dess I'll take a nappy now,” he murmured, and in five minutes was sleeping as soundly as a dormouse. Two striped squirrels, which may or may not have been the same which he had seen in the early morning, came out on a bough not a yard from his head, chattered, winked, put their paws to their noses and made disrespectful remarks to each other about the motionless figure. Birds flew and sang, bees hummed, the wind went to and fro in the branches like the notes of a low song. But Archie heard none of these things. The hen herself might have come back, cackled her best, and flapped her wings in his very face without arousing him, so deep was his slumber.
Meantime at home, two miles away, there was great commotion over the disappearance of Master Archie. Marianne had lingered quite a long time at the back gate. The milkman was a widower, looking out for a wife, and Marianne, as she said, could skim cream with anybody; so it was only natural that they should have a great deal to say to each other, and that measuring the milk at that particular gate should be a slow business. This morning their talk was so interesting that twenty minutes at least went by before Marianne, with very rosy cheeks and very bright eyes, came back, pail in hand, along the garden walk. As she took up the broom to finish her sweeping, she heard a great commotion overhead, steps running about, voices exclaiming; but her mind was full of the milkman, and she paid no attention, till Louisa came flying downstairs, half-dressed, and crying,--
”Sake's alive, Marianne, where's Master Archie?”
”How should I know? Not down here, anyway,” was Marianne's reply.
”But he _must_ be down here,” persisted Louisa. ”He's gone out of the nursery, and so are his clothes. Whatever's taken him I can't imagine.
I've searched the closets, and looked under the beds, and up in the attic, and I took Mr. Gray his hot water, and he isn't there. His spade's gone too, and his ap-- Oh, mercy! there's his story-book now,”
and she pounced on ”Robinson Crusoe,” where it lay on the table. ”He's been down here certain sure, for that book was on his bed when he went to sleep last night. Don't stand there, Marianne, but come and help me find him.”
Into the parlor, the dining-room, the pantry, ran the maids, calling ”Archie! Archie!” at the tops of their voices. But Archie, who as we know was a good mile away by that time, did not hear them. They searched the kitchen, the cellar, the wood-shed, the store-closet. Marianne even lifted the lid of the great copper boiler and peeped in to make sure that he was not there! Louisa ran wildly about the garden, looking behind currant bushes and raspberry vines, and parting the tall feathers of the asparagus lest Archie should have chosen to hide among them. She tapped the great green watermelons with her fingers as she pa.s.sed,--perhaps she fancied that Archie might be stowed away inside of one. All was in vain. Archie was not behind the currant bushes, not even in the melon patch. Louisa began to sob and cry, Marianne, never backward, joined her with a true Irish howl; and it was in this condition that Archie's Papa found things when he came downstairs to breakfast.
Then ensued a fresh confusion.
”Where did you say the book was lying, Louisa?” said Mr. Gray, trying to make out the meaning of her sobbing explanation.
”Just here, sir, on the hall table. Oh, the darling child, whatever has come to him?”
”Oh, wurra! wurra!” chimed in Marianne. ”He been and got took away by wicked people, perhaps. Well niver get him back, niver!”
”The hall table? Then he must have pa.s.sed out this way. Surely you must have seen him or heard him open the door, Marianne?”
”Is it I see him, sir? I'd niver forget it if I had. Oh, the pretty face of him! Wurra! wurra!”
”But, now I think of it, the child couldn't have opened the door for himself,” went on Papa, growing impatient. ”Did you leave it standing open at all, Marianne?”
”Only for a wee moment while I fetched in the milk,” faltered Marianne, growing rosy-red as she reflected on the length of the ”moment” which she had pa.s.sed at the gate with the milkman.
”That must have been the time, then,” said Mr. Gray. ”Probably the little fellow has set off by himself for a walk. I'll go after and look for him. Don't frighten Mrs. Gray when she comes down, Louisa, but just say that Archie and I are both gone out. Try to look as you usually do.”
This, however, was beyond Louisa's powers. Her eyes were as red as a ferret's, and her cheeks the color of purple cherries from crying and excitement of mind. Mrs. Gray saw at once that something was wrong. She began to question, Louisa to cry, and the secret came out in a burst of sobs and tears. ”Master Archie--bless his little heart!--has got out of bed and ran away into the woods. The master was gone after him, but he'd niver find him at all at all”--(this was Marianne's addition). ”The tramps had him fast by this time, no doubt. They'd niver let him go.”
”How could he get away all by himself?” asked poor frightened Mrs. Gray.
”Ah, who knows? Like as not the thaves came into the room and lifted him out of his very bed. They're iverywhere, thim tramps! There's no providing against thim. Oh, howly St. Patrick! who'd have thought it?”
This happy idea of tramps having lodged itself in Marianne's mind, the story grew rapidly. The butcher was informed of it when he came, the fishmonger, and the grocer's boy. By noon all the village had heard the tale, and farmers' wives for ten miles round were shuddering over these horrible facts, that three men in black masks, with knives as long as your arm, had broken into Mr. Gray's house at midnight, gagged the family, stowed the silver and money in pillow-cases, token the little boy from his bed,--that pretty little boy with curly hair, you know, my dear,--and, paying no attention to his screams and cries, had carried him off n.o.body knew where. Poor Mrs. Gray was half dead with grief, of course, and Mr. Gray had gone in pursuit; but law! my dear, he'll never catch 'em, and if he did, what could he do against three men?