“Grandfather, Grandfather, where are you?” Try as she would, she could not keep a ring of impatience from her voice. They would be wanting her at the house. Neither Mrs. Buckle nor Galena would know quite how much coffee to make, and it was of all things most exasperating to have to run away in this fashion, when there was so much to be done, and the occasion was so unusually festive.
In spite of all the calling there was no response. Perhaps the man had gone farther away. Pam searched along the narrow tracks made by the pigs and the calves, she wandered here and hurried there with feverish persistency, until the perspiration was pouring down her face. She had torn her frock, and her hair, done more elaborately than usual, was streaming down her back.
How really horrid it all was! She was ready to give up the quest in disgust, and to go back to the house, when, shouting once again, she heard a faint response to her calling, and at once plunged forward to meet the one who called. In her haste she went to jump the rotting trunk of a tree that lay half-buried in fern, but catching the heel of her shoe as she tried to clear the obstacle, she came down with a tremendous crash, and was for the time completely stunned.
CHAPTER XXII
Good News
People accustomed to waiting on themselves never feel so much at a loss in times of strain as those who have servants to command in a general way. Galena Gittins, summoned by the Irishman, came to the out-place, and started making coffee for all that big company with the ease and dispatch that came from long years of having to do all sorts of things at the shortest possible notice. She wondered why Pam had not spoken to her before about doing this particular bit of business, but she supposed something had turned up suddenly to call her away.
“Miss Gittins, where is Pam?” demanded Jack, dashing out from the big kitchen like a small tornado. The guests were all filing in and taking their places at the table, but there was no one to look after them, to act as hostess, or to do anything at all.
“I have not the ghost of a notion,” replied Galena, who was very hot, and very much occupied with the coffee. “If the folks are ready you had better start them at feeding, for this coffee is prime now, and some of the people must be fair tuckered out by this time.”
“I can’t sit at the head of the table, and—what do you call it?—dispense hospitality,” said Jack. “I will get Dr. Grierson to do it, and Mrs. Buckle can help him, but I want to know where Pam has got to. Is anything the matter, do you expect?”