It was indeed a great day. Every class was to recite. Compositions were to be read, songs sung, the piano played, diplomas presented, speeches made, and trustee meetings held. There was to be a collation, and the village band was to play while people ate. Surely nothing could be more festive than this. The building was crowded with guests. There were the people of the village, the home friends of the students, the people who used to be students in the early days, the thirty-six trustees whose fostering care was so necessary to the success of the school, and many other folk who came just because something was going on and they wanted to be in it.
Everything began finely. At nine, ten, eleven, the big bell in the belfry rang, and the members of the first three series of classes made plain to the delighted visitors how learned the year’s work had made them. The bell struck twelve. This was the signal for Ella’s French class, and after that the collation was to come. But where was Ella? The classes were so small that the absence of even one student was noticeable, and a messenger was sent to the mother, who was hearing her class in botany.
In those days, the more difficult the wording of a textbook, the more intellectual good those who studied it were supposed to get from its pages, and a member of the class in botany was at that moment declaring that “The cypripedium is perfectly symmetrical, yet has irregular cohesion in the calyx, great inequality in the petals, cohesion, adhesion, and metamorphosis in the—” but the guests were never told by that class where “cohesion, adhesion, and metamorphosis” might be found, for their teacher dropped the book and forgot all about cypripedium and everything else except that her one little girl was missing. Ella had established an enviable reputation for punctuality, and if she was not in her class, then something had happened.
A general alarm was given. Speeches, collation, graduating exercises were all forgotten, and a search was begun. The boys and girls and the faculty and the trustees and the guests all set out to explore the country. A man at work in a field said that he had seen a little girl in a red cape going toward the lake; and to the lake the whole company went. In the moist sand were prints of little feet going straight to the water’s edge, and the mother’s face turned white. But beside them were the marks of Ponto’s sturdy paws.
“The dog is with her,” said the steward. “You need not be the least bit afraid. Ponto would never let anything happen to her.”
But the mother was not comforted. Just what dogs would do, she knew not; but she did know that water would drown little children.
Some one had caught sight of a child in a Red Riding Hood cape strolling leisurely down a little hill on the right. The dog was with her, and they were having a fine ramble together. The people shouted to her, and Ponto answered with a deep and surprised “Bow-wow!” which probably meant,
“Of course I’m glad to see you, but what are you here for? Can’t you let us take a little walk?”
“Where have you been?” cried the mother, as the little girl came near.
“Over on the hill to get some flowers,” Ella replied serenely.