One day Jessie coming home from school found her mother counting the silver. “Jessie,” she said, “do you remember taking any of these small teaspoons at any time?”
“Why no, mother,” returned Jessie. “I always have a kitchen spoon, you know, and I haven’t had one of those for a long time, not since that day I had the marmalade down by the brook.”
“I don’t see where they can have gone,” said Mrs. Loomis. “There are two missing, and I am sure they were all here last week. Minerva is very careful and I don’t think she could possibly have thrown them out. You are quite sure that you and Adele have not had them up in the attic?”
“I am quite sure,” returned Jessie, “but I will go and look.”
“I wish you would,” said her mother.
Jessie trudged up to the attic and searched among the playthings, but there were no spoons to be seen. She went back to her mother. “They are not there,” she said. “Adele and I haven’t had anything but dolls’ parties up there, and then we used the spoons that belong to the play tea-set.”
“I cannot think where they can be,” repeated Mrs. Loomis.
“Perhaps the boys had them down at the barn or somewhere,” suggested Jessie.
“But I have counted them since they went back to school, and they were all here. I have looked everywhere I can think of, and so has Minerva. They are never taken to the kitchen except to be washed, and the only person who has been along is that old peddler who comes with tins sometimes. I have always thought him an honest old soul, as peddlers go, but I can think of no one else.”
“I don’t believe it was the peddler,” said Jessie. “He has been coming here for a long time, and he is always very nice and kind. He gave me a ring with a blue set in it one day because he said he liked little girls, and that he once had a little daughter about my age who died. I am sure it couldn’t be the peddler.”