Before Frances or Mrs. Merrill could suggest an answer, the two little girls themselves came out of the front door, turned to look at the porch and then stood there, as though fastened to the floor—they were that surprised.
“Why—why—” said Mary Jane, “I left it right here!”
“Well, nobody ever stole anything before,” said Betty. “Maybe the boys just hid it!”
“No, they didn’t,” replied Frances, “because they haven’t come home from school yet. They stopped to see Jimmie’s new chicken house and they won’t be home for an hour.”
“What’s the trouble?” asked Mrs. Holden, who, hearing voices, came to the front door to invite folks in for a visit.
“Trouble enough, Mother,” said Frances, worriedly. “Mary Jane left her brand new doll cart on our porch and it’s gone!”
“And we just went in to get my doll,” explained Betty, getting very excited. “We just went in a little minute and then we were going to eat the taffy apples and now they’re gone too—oh, dear!”
At that minute, yes, things really do happen this way sometimes, who should go by the house but the big friendly policeman who always stood at the street corner nearest the school to guard the children from swiftly moving autos. Betty spied him and ran down the walk to speak to him.
“So the cart’s gone, is it?” he said as he and Betty came up toward the house. “Well, if you’ll let me use your ’phone, I’ll tell them down at the station just what kind of a cart it is and maybe we can get a trace of it—anyway, we can try.”
Mrs. Holden went indoors with him and the others stood around on the porch hardly knowing what to do. Losing her cart was a real calamity to poor Mary Jane—she very well knew that her father couldn’t afford to get her another one and she had hard work, awfully hard work, to keep back the tears that came to her eyes and to swallow the lump that filled her throat. She didn’t want to be a crybaby, but—and the lump got bigger and bigger—