AND A MAJOR.
TOLD BY JACK.
THE next day Phil was more like himself,—almost as usual, at least during the first part of the day; after that, everybody got into such a state of excitement that we forgot all about his mood,—I guess he forgot it himself.
As I've told you, Kathie and the little ones weren't behaving at all nicely. You see the trouble was they wanted their own way, and Nora wanted hers, and nurse wanted hers too; and some days things went all wrong in the nursery. Nora'd declare that she was mistress as long as Nannie wasn't at home, and that the children should obey her; then nurse would get huffy and call the little ones her "pets" and her "poor darlin's," and of course that made them feel as if they were being dreadfully abused. I think Nora did nag some, and perhaps she ordered people a little more than she need have done, but that's her way of doing things; she didn't mean in the least to be disagreeable, and the children were certainly very provoking. It seemed to me as if they were forever in mischief, and my! weren't they pert! and sometimes they wouldn't mind at all. Once or twice I tried to see if I could help things, but I just got into trouble both times, and only made matters worse, so I thought I'd better leave 'em alone.
Well, on this particular morning, nurse woke feeling so ill that she couldn't get up at all; so Nora had to see to dressing the children and giving them their breakfast. Mädel was good,—she's a dear little creature!—but the boys were wild for mischief, and just as saucy and self-willed as they could be, and, worst of all, Kathie got into one of her crying moods. She cried all the time she was dressing, and all through breakfast,—a kind of whining cry that just wears on a person. Phil called her Niobe, and declared that if she didn't look out, she'd float away on her tears; Fee threatened to put her in a picture, just as she looked; I coaxed and promised her one or two of my things, and Nora scolded: nothing had any effect, Kathie just wept straight on.
She is awfully trying when she gets in these moods, but I guess she can't always help it,—at least Nannie thinks so,—and perhaps if Nora had been patient just a little while longer, the storm would have blown over. But all at once Nora lost her temper, and catching Kathie by the arm, she walked her wailing from the room.
Well, in just about one minute more, Paul and Mädel and Alan were off too, roaring like everything.
"O-o-h! we want Kathie! we w-a-n-t Kathie! O-o-o-h! bring back Kath-i-e!"
Well, you'd have thought they never expected to lay eyes on Kathie again!
"WHERE WE FOUND KATHIE."
I coaxed and talked and talked till my throat fairly ached, telling 'em funny things to divert their attention,—the way I've heard Nannie and Betty do; Fee began just as loud as he could (to drown their noise and make them listen) about the Trojan horse,—they like that story; and Phil offered them everything that there was on the table if they'd only stop yelling; he declared the neighbours would be coming in to see what we were doing to them. But at last they quieted down, and let me take them upstairs to the nursery, where we found Kathie seated upon a chair, and still weeping.
On account of nurse's being ill, there were a good many things for Nora to do,—I could see she had her hands full,—so I stayed in the schoolroom and looked after the children to help her. By and by Kathie stopped crying—I guess there were no more tears left to come—and began to join in the games I started. Usually she's very penitent after one of these fits of temper, but this time she seemed more sulky than anything else; and she was such a sight that I felt sorry for her. Kathie's very fair,—she's a real pretty little girl when she's in a good humour,—and now, from crying so much, and rubbing her eyes, they were all swollen and red; the red marks went 'way down on her cheeks; and her nose was all red and swollen, too: you'd hardly have known her for the same child.
After awhile—I'd set them playing house, and things seemed quiet—I got out one of my books, and, fixing myself comfortably on the sofa, began to read. But presently something—a sort of stillness in the room—made me look up; the children were under the schoolroom table with their heads close together, and they were whispering. Kathie was weeping again, but very softly; Mädel had one arm around her, and was wiping Kathie's tears away with her pinafore; Paul was showing them something which I couldn't see,—he had his back to me,—and Alan sat on his heels, grinning, and gazing at Judge with wide-open, admiring eyes.
Just at this moment Nora opened the door and called me; you should have seen those four jump! and the way Judge hurried what he had in his hand out of sight! But I didn't suspect anything; I didn't dream of what they were up to.
"Jack," said Nora, when I got out in the hall, "Phil has gone out to see to something for me, and I can't send Fee, so I wish you would go round to Dr. Archard's and ask him to call and see nurse as soon as possible. She won't let me do a thing for her, and yet she's groaning, and says she feels dreadfully; she may be very ill, for all I know."
There was such an anxious look on Nora's face that I tried to cheer her up. "Don't worry, Nonie," I said; "you know nurse gets scared awfully easy. If she has a finger-ache, she thinks she's dreadfully ill, and wants the doctor."
"Well, perhaps she'll feel better after she has seen him," Nora said. "Between Kathie and her I've had a pretty hard morning; I'm doing my very best, but nobody seems to think so." She gave her head a proud toss, but I could see there were tears in her eyes. I didn't know what to say, so I just patted her hand, and then got my hat and went for the doctor.
It was a lovely day, and I didn't suppose there was any need for me to hurry back, so I took a walk, and didn't get home for a good while after leaving my message at the doctor's.
Before I had time to ring the bell, Nora opened the front door; she looked very much excited, and asked breathlessly, "Did you meet them? Have you seen them?"
Of course I didn't understand. "Meet whom? What d'you mean?" I asked in surprise.
"The children. Then they are lost!" answered Nora, and she sat down on a chair in the hall and burst out crying. Then out came Phil and Felix from the drawing-room, where they had been with Nora, and I heard the whole story.
It seems that soon after I left for the doctor's, Judge went down stairs and asked cook for some gingerbread,—"enough for the four of us," he said,—and some time later, when Nora went up to the schoolroom to see what the children were doing, not one of them was there, nor could they be found in the house. Nora flew to tell Felix and Phil, and in the hurried search from garret to cellar which everybody made,—except nurse, she wasn't told anything of it,—it was found that the children's every-day hats were gone.
Of course, as soon as I heard that, I remembered the whispering under the schoolroom table, and I felt at once that the children had run away. I just wished I had told Nora about it, or that I had come right back from the doctor's; I might have prevented their going.
"NORA TORE IT OPEN."
While I was telling Nora and the boys what I thought about the matter, Hannah came flying into the drawing-room,—she was so excited, she forgot to knock. She held a cocked-hat note in her hand,—Kathie is great on cocked-hat notes and paper lamplighters. "Oh, Miss Nora! it's meself that's just found this on the flure mostly under the big Sarytogy thrunk,—the one that's open," she cried, almost out of breath from her rush down the steps.
"Nora" was scrawled in Kathie's handwriting on the outside of the note. In an instant Nora tore it open, but she passed it right over to Phil. "Read it,—I can't," she said in a shaky voice. So he did.
The note was very short and the spelling was funny, though we didn't think of that until afterward; this is what was in it: "We are not goging to stay here to be treted like this so we have run away we are goging to Nannie becaws she tretes us good. I have token my new parrasole for the sun goodby we have Jugs bank with us Kathie."
Poor Nonie! that just broke her all up! She cried and cried! "I didn't ill-treat them; I was trying to do my very best for them. If I was cross, I didn't mean it,—and they had to be made to mind," she kept saying between her sobs. "And now they've gone off in this dreadful way! Oh, suppose some tramp should get hold of them—or they should be run over or hurt—or—we—should—never see them again! Oh—oh! what shall I say to papa and Nannie!"
"Oh, shure, Miss Nora, you don't mane to say the darlints is ralely lost!" exclaimed Hannah, and with that she began to bawl; Phil had to send her right down stairs, and warn her against letting nurse know. Then we tried to comfort Nora. "You've done your level best, and nobody can do any more than that," Phil said, drawing Nora to him, and pressing her face down hard on his shoulder, while he patted her cheek. "Cheer up, Nonie, old girl, they are no more lost than I am; you see if we don't walk them home in no time,—young rascals! they ought to be well punished for giving us such a scare."
"Yes, we'll probably find them in the park, regaling themselves with the good things that 'Jugs bank' has afforded," remarked Fee, trying to speak cheerfully. "We're going right out to look for them. Come, Jack, get on your hat and go along too; I'm ready." As he spoke, he stuck his hat on and stood up.
"Shall we go separately?" I asked, dropping Nora's hand,—I'd been patting it.
"Indeed we will go separately," answered Phil, emphatically. "Here, Nora, sit down; and we will have a plan, and stick to it, too," he added, "or we'll all three be sure to think of the same scheme, travel over the same ground, and arrive at the same conclusion. There's been rather an epidemic of that sort of thing in this family lately,—the 'three souls with but a single thought, three wills that work as one,' business. Yes, sir, we'll have a plan. Fee, you go to the little parks, and some way down the avenue; Jack, you go up the avenue, and through as many of the cross streets as you can get in; and I'll go east and west, across the tracks"—as the word slipped out he gave a quick look at Nora; we knew he was thinking of those dreadful cable cars: but fortunately she didn't seem to have heard.
So off we started, after making Nora promise she'd stay at home and wait for us to bring her news.
We separated at our corner; but I'd only gone a block or two when I thought of something that sent me flying back to the house. I slipped in the basement way, and up the back stairs to the nursery, where I hunted out an old glove of Kathie's; then down I went to the yard and loosed Major, and he and I started out as fast as we could go.
Once or twice in the country, when the children had strayed too far on the beach, by showing Major something they'd worn, and telling him to "Find 'em!" he had led Phil and me right to them. I had remembered this, and now as we walked up the avenue I kept showing Kathie's glove to the dear old doggie, and telling him, "Find Kathie, Major, find her! find her, old boy!" And it did seem as if he understood—Major's an awfully bright dog—by the way he wagged his tail and went with his nose to the ground smelling the pavement.
He went pretty straight for nearly a block up the avenue, then he got bothered by the people passing up and down so continually, and he began to whine and run aimlessly about; I could hardly make him go on; and when I took him in the cross streets, he wasn't any good at all. I felt real discouraged. But just as soon as we turned into Twenty-third Street, I could see that he'd struck something; for though he did a lot of zigzagging over the pavement, he went ahead all the time: I tell you, I was right at his tail at every turn. When we came opposite to where Madison Avenue begins, if Major didn't cross over and strike off into the park. Presently he gave a short, quick bark, and tore down a path. I fairly flew after him; up one path and down another we went like mad, until we came to the fountain, and there, in the shade of a big tree, just as cool and unconcerned as you please, were the runaways!
Kathie was seated off on one end of the bench, with her new parasol open over her head, putting on all sorts of airs, while she gave orders to Paul and Mädel, who were setting out some forlorn-looking fruit on the other end of the bench; Alan was walking backward and forward dragging his express waggon after him.
"Why, it's Major!" cried Alan, as the old doggie bounced on him and licked his face.
"And Jack! hullo!" sang out Paul, turning round and seeing me.
"Oh, lawks!" exclaimed Mädel,—she'd caught that expression from nurse, who always says it when she's frightened or excited,—and with that she scrambled up on the bench and threw her arms round Kathie's neck with such force that she knocked the parasol out of her hand, and it slipped down over their heads and hid their faces.
"AND THERE, JUST AS COOL AND UNCONCERNED AS YOU PLEASE,
WERE THE RUNAWAYS."
Of course I was thankful to see them, very thankful; but at the same time I must say I was provoked, too, at the cool way in which they were taking things, when we'd been so frightened about them. "You mean little animals!" I said, giving Paul's shoulder a shake. "There's poor Nonie at home crying her eyes out about you, and here're you all enjoying yourselves! What d'you mean by behaving like this?"
Instead of being sorry, if they didn't get saucy right away,—at least the boys did. Judge jerked himself away from me. "If anybody's going to punish us, I'm not coming home," he drawled, planting his feet wide apart on the asphalt pavement, and looking me square in the eye. "Nor me!" chimed in Alan, defiantly.
The parasol was lifted a little, and Mädel peeped out. "Will Nora make us go to bed right away?" she asked anxiously; "before we get any dinner?"
Up went the parasol altogether, and Kathie slipped to the ground. "Oh, Jack, is everybody awfully mad? and what'll they do to us?" she said, and she looked just ready to begin weeping again. "'Cause if they are, we'd rather stay here; we've got things to eat—"
"Yes, we've got lots of things," broke in Alan; "see," pointing to the miserable-looking fruit on the end of the bench, "all that! Judge bought it; we couldn't get the bank open, but the fruitman took it,—he said he didn't mind,—an' let us have all these things for it; wasn't he kind? We're going to have a party."
Well, for a few minutes I didn't know what to do,—I mean how to get them to go home without a fuss. I could see that Paul and Alan were just ready for mischief; if they started to run in different directions, I couldn't catch both, and there were those dangerous cable cars not very far away. Suppose the boys should rush across Broadway and get run over! I suppose I could have called a policeman, and got him to take us all home, but I knew that'd make a terrible fuss; Kathie and Mädel would howl,—they're awfully afraid of "p'leecemen," as Alan calls them, and I really don't care very much for them myself. At last I got desperate. "See here, children," I said, "I've been sent to find you if I could, and to bring you home, and I've got to do it, you know. If you'd seen how worried everybody was, and how poor Nonie cried for fear some tramp had got hold of you—"
"I just guess not!" broke in Judge, defiantly; but all the same he glanced quickly over his shoulder, and drew a little nearer to me.
"—or for fear you'd get hurt, or have no place to sleep in, you'd want to go straight home this minute. You know this park's all very well for the day-time; but when night comes, and it gets dark, what'll you do? The policemen may turn you out, and where will you all go then? Nannie is miles and miles away from here by the cars, and how're children like you ever going to get to her without money or anything? And even if it were so you could get to her, what do you suppose Nannie'd say when she found you had all run away from home?"
I said all this very seriously,—I tell you I felt serious,—and the minute I stopped speaking Mädel slipped from the bench and slid her little hand into mine. "I'm going home," she declared.
"Perhaps I will, too, if Nora won't punish us," said Kathie, undecidedly.
"I don't know if she'll punish you or not," I said; "but even if she should, isn't that better than staying here all the time, and having no dinner,—cook's made a lovely shortcake for dessert,—and no beds to sleep in, and never coming home at all again?"
Kathie caught hold of my hand. "I'm ready," she said; "let's go now."
"Coming, boys?" I asked carelessly.
"Oh, I s'pose we'll have to," answered Paul, sulkily, kicking the leg of the bench; "and there's my money all gone!"
I was wild to get them home, but I had to wait as patiently as I could while the boys piled the horrid old fruit into the express wagon—they wouldn't have left it for anything—and harnessed Major to it with pieces of twine they had in their pockets; then we started.
We passed the fruitman that had cheated Judge, and Phil said afterwards that I ought to have stopped and made him give up the bank,—there were nearly two dollars in it, besides the value of the bank itself, and he had given the children about ten or fifteen cents' worth of miserable stuff for it,—but I do hate to fight people, and besides, I was in a hurry to get home, so I didn't notice him at all.
We went along in pretty good spirits—Major at the head of the procession—until we got near home; then Kathie asked once or twice, rather nervously, "What do you suppose Nora'll do to us, Jack?" and the boys began to lag behind a little. As we turned off the avenue, into our street, two people came down our stoop—we live near the corner—and came toward us. One of them was an old lady, and I knew at once that I'd seen her before, though I couldn't remember where. She was a little old lady, and she stooped a good deal; her nose was long and hooked, and she had a turn-up chin like in the pictures of Punch that we have at home. Kathie saw the likeness, too, for she pulled my elbow and whispered: "Oh, Jack, doesn't she look like Punch? Perhaps she's his wife."
The other woman was stout, and she helped the old lady along,—I think she was a maid. As we got near them, the old lady fumbled for her eyeglasses, put them on, and looked sharply at us. "Yes, yes, looks like his father!" we heard her say; then, "Have we time, Sanders? I should like to speak to them."
"Indeed, mum, we haven't time to stop," replied Sanders; "we've barely time to catch the boat." Then they got into the hansom that was standing at the curb, and were driven away.
Hannah opened the door, and the yell of joy that she gave when she saw the children brought Nora flying to meet us. I couldn't help noticing how bright and happy Nora looked, very different from when we had left her, an hour or so before; and the way she met the children was also a surprise to me. I knew she'd be glad to see them safe, but I thought surely she would have given them a good scolding, too, or punished them in some way; they deserved it, and I know they expected it. But she met them as sweetly and affectionately as even Nannie could have; she gave them something to eat,—it was long past our lunch hour,—and then she walked them into the study and gave them a tremendous talking to. I don't know whether it was the unexpected way in which she treated them, or the talking to, or what, but they came out of the study looking very subdued, and they certainly behaved better for the rest of the time before we went in the country. And Nora was different, too, for that time; she scarcely nagged, and she was more gentle,—so perhaps their running away taught her a lesson as well.
In the mean time—while Nora and the children were in the study—Felix came in, all tired out, and a little while later Phil; and weren't they indignant, though, with those youngsters when they found they were safe and sound!
All that afternoon Nora seemed very happy; we could hear her singing as she went up and down stairs and about the house, looking after nurse and the children. It was the same all through dinner-time,—she just bubbled over with fun, and it was the pleasantest meal we'd had since the family broke up. Now Nora isn't often like this,—in fact, very seldom; and to-day we supposed it was because she was so glad the children had been found; as Phil said, 'twas almost worth while losing the youngsters—as long's we'd found them again—to have Nora so bright and pleasant. His ill humour had all disappeared, and he and Nora just kept us laughing with their funny sayings. But Fee was rather quiet; his tramp after the children had tired him, and I guess, too, that he was thinking of the evening, and wondering how he could keep Phil from going off with Chad.
After dinner I went out to feed Major; I tell you, we all think him the wisest old doggie in New York! and I gave him the biggest dinner any dog could eat. Just as I was coming through the hall to go on the stoop where Phil and Felix were sitting, Nora ran down the steps and stood at the open front door. "Come in the drawing-room, boys; I have something particular to tell you," she said. "Come right away; better close the front door,—it's a long story."
Fee got up slowly, but Phil hesitated. "I wonder if Chad will be round?" he said.
"Oh, not to-night," answered Nora, quickly. "Why, didn't you hear him say last evening that he was going out of town for two or three days?"
Fee's face lighted up, and he opened his big eyes at me,—I know he was delighted; and it seemed to me that Phil's surprised "No! is that so?" did not sound very sorry.
"Oh, hurry in, do!" Nora said impatiently. "I've kept the secret all the afternoon,—until we had a chance to talk quietly together,—and now it is just burning my lips to get out. Come, Jack, you, too."