Nobody there had seen the “fresh airs” since they had followed the bigger boys to the pond.
“And ye sure didn’t leave ’em down there?” demanded Sadie Raby of Tom.
“Goodness me! No!” exclaimed Tom. “They couldn’t go in swimming as we did, and so they got mad and wouldn’t stay. But they started right up this way, and we thought they were all right.”
“They might have slanted off and gone across the fields to Caslon’s,” said Bobbins, doubtfully.
“That would have taken them into the back pasture where Caslon keeps his Angoras—wouldn’t it?” demanded the much-worried young man.
“Well, you can go look for ’em with the goats,” snapped Sadie, starting off. “But me for that Caslon place. If they didn’t go there, then they are in the woods somewhere.”
She started down the hill, fleet-footed as a dog. Before Mr. Steele had stopped sputtering over the catastrophe, and bethought him to start somebody for the Caslon premises to make inquiries, Sadie came in view again, with the old, gray-mustached farmer in tow.
The serious look on Mr. Caslon’s face was enough for all those waiting at Sunrise Farm to realize that the absent children were actually lost. Tom and Bobbins had come up from the goat pasture without having seen, or heard, the six little fellows.
“I forgot to tell ye,” said Caslon, seriously, “that ye had to keep one eye at least on them ‘terrible twins’ all the time. We locked ’em into their bedroom at night. No knowin’ when or where they’re likely to break out. But I reckoned this here sister of theirs would keep ’em close to her——”
“Well!” snapped Sadie Raby, eyeing Tom and Bobbins with much disfavor, “I thought that a bunch of big fellers like them could look after half a dozen little mites.”