“I don’t know what I shall do with you!”
But she did. For she told Nurse Norah to give him a bath.
When he had been scrubbed and rubbed and dried, and stood very red and warm to have his hair brushed, he sobbed:
“Somebody didn’t ought to look after me better!”
“Sure, ’twould take a paycock’s eyes, and more, to look after sich a stirabout! Now run, see the organ-man with your sisters, and be good,” said Norah.
The organ-man carried a monkey, and the monkey carried a tambourine, with which he played such pranks the little Wares fell off the steps one after another in fits of laughter, and Boy Blue decided at once to buy that monkey if he could. So when the organ-man went away Boy Blue followed. Only Tot saw him go, for the others were running back to the nursery to see if the dolls were awake. And Tot could not make people understand what her little, lisping tongue meant to say.
It grew late and later; it was almost dark. Boy Blue did not come home. They began to wonder; they began to be anxious; they began to look for him. They called his name everywhere. They shouted, “Little Boy Blue! Boy Blu-u-u-e! Blu-u-u-ue!”
He did not come. They thought what if he should never come back!
Mamma cried.
“Somebody has stolen him!” said Norah.