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.