Half-way up the hill he saw Anne, coming to meet him. “Uncle Enos! Uncle Enos!” she called, “Brownie is lost! Indeed she is. All the morning have I gone up and down the pasture, calling her name and looking everywhere for her, and she is not to be found.”
“Well, well!” responded Captain Enos; “’Tis sure the Britishers have not stolen her, for there is not one of their craft in sight. The cow is probably feeding somewhere about; we’ll find her safe in some good pasturage. Is the chowder steaming hot and waiting?”
“Yes, Uncle Enos,” replied Anne, slipping her hand into the captain’s, “but Aunt Martha is greatly concerned about Brownie. She fears the Indians may have driven her off.”
“We’ll cruise about a little after dinner,” answered the captain. “I don’t like to think that the Indians would show themselves unfriendly just now,” and his pleasant face grew stern and serious.
But his appetite for the chowder was excellent, and when he started out to search for Brownie he was sure that he would find her near the marsh or perhaps in the maple grove further on, where the cattle sometimes wandered.
“Now, Anne, I have an errand for you to do,” said Mrs. Stoddard, as the captain started on his search. “I’ve just remembered that the Starkweather children had good stockings last year of crimson yarn. Now it may be that Mrs. Starkweather has more on hand, and that I could exchange my gray, as she has stout boys to wear gray stockings, for her scarlet yarn; and then we’ll take up some stockings for you.”
Anne’s face brightened. “I should well like some scarlet stockings,” she said.
“I mean you to be warmly clad come frost,” said Mrs. Stoddard. “Now see that you do the errand well. Ask Mrs. Starkweather, first of all, if she be in good health. It is not seemly to be too earnest in asking a favor. Then say that Mistress Stoddard has enough excellent gray yarn for two pair of long stockings, and that she would take it as a kindness if Mistress Starkweather would take it in exchange for scarlet yarn.”
“Yes, Aunt Martha, I will surely remember,” and Anne started off happily.
As she passed the spring a shrill voice called her name, and she turned to see Amanda Cary, half hidden behind a small savin.