“Too bad,” said Grandfather, as hand in hand they walked up to the house. “But I’ll make you another baby. Some mischievous boy has passed by and taken it. There is not much travel on this road, though, and you never lost anything before, did you? It’s strange.”
Over on the Tallman steps sat Phil alone. He was spick and span in a clean starched suit, his hair was brushed to a gloss, and he was turning the leaves of a picture-book in a way that any proper and well-behaved child might imitate. At this moment, whatever may have been true earlier in the day, there was not the slightest suggestion of Naughty Adolphus about little Phil.
But he seemed dispirited, and Grandmother, who had sharp eyes and ears as well as a warm heart, and who had guessed something of Phil’s unhappy afternoon, looked from the drooping little figure on the steps to the red-rimmed eyes of her own Susan.
“Susan,” said she briskly, “it’s a long while to supper-time. You run over and ask Mrs. Vane to let Philip come back here with you. Tell her I have a little treat for you two. I hope I won’t give them bad dreams,” Grandmother added to herself, as Susan gladly sped over the garden wall and across the green lawn on her pleasant errand.
Back came the children, hand in hand, already looking brighter, and when they saw the little saucer pie, neatly cut in two, they broke into broad smiles.
“Chew it well,” instructed Grandmother, “and when you have finished, be sure you run around the house three times.
“But I believe their pleasure is worth one nightmare,” reflected she, “though I don’t know that Mrs. Vane would agree with me.”
“It’s good,” announced Phil, his own cheerful self once more, as he joyously ate berry juice with a spoon.
“It’s the best pie I ever tasted,” said Susan, twisting about in her chair to smile at Grandmother. Never, never again would she be rude to Grandmother; of that she was sure.
“But I do wish,” said Susan, looking round at every one, “that I knew who took my squash baby.”