“Pina, stop howling and go on with this statement!” said Anna, authoritatively, while Drusilla clasped her hands, and listened in an agony of anxiety.
“Well, ma’am, after the men turned away, little Lenny began to tease me for pennies to give to the dancing-monkey—and I gave him all I had, and he ran into the crowd to put them into the hat the monkey was holding out.”
“You should not have let him do that,” said Anna.
“Ma’am, you know how sudden and self-willed he is! he sprang away from me before I could stop him. And I ran after him to bring him out. But, just at that very moment, there came rushing down the sidewalk, and right through the crowd, a man with his head bare and bloody, followed by a running crowd, all yelling at the top of their voices:
“‘Stop thief! stop thief!’
“And they overturned the organ man and his dancing-monkey, and carried off his crowd with them. I ran after them calling for little Lenny, who was swept out of my sight by the rushing stream of people. I ran with all my speed and I called with all my voice, but I got knocked from one side of the walk to the other, and thrown down and run over, and trampled on, and swore at, and—and that was the way I lost little Lenny. I was hunting up and down for him when the policeman found me and fetched me home. Oh, dear! oh, me, that ever I should live to see the day! Oh, missus! oh, Miss Anna! oh——”
“Now stop. Let us talk calmly for a moment,” said Anna, reflectively. “Let me see. Lenny could not have been hurried off by those thief-hunters; because, if he had been, a tender little creature like himself would have been thrown down, run over, and left behind, and you would have found him on the ground more or less injured.”
“That was what I was a dreading of every minute, Miss Anna. Oh, little Lenny! dear little Lenny!”
“Therefore,” continued Anna, “as he was not so run over and left, he must have been snatched up by some one and carried off under cover of the confusion. The kidnapper probably darted up one of the side streets or alleys, and disappeared with his prey in that way.”
“That was what I thought, too, Miss Anna, when I remembered seeing them bad-looking men and hearing what they said. They was a watching of their opportunity to seize little Lenny and run away with him; and in course they must have been set on by his father, who wanted him; else what call would they have to take the child?—they who don’t look as if they had overmuch love for children, or for any other creatures, to tell the holy truth; no, nor likewise did they look as if they was able to keep themselves from starving, much less a child; so it stands to reason as they was hired to seize little Lenny by some un who did love him, and was able to keep him; and who could that have been but his own father?”