CHAPTER VI
The Beginning of the Search
“O Bo’sn, Bo’sn! Where did you leave him? You never left him before–never, not once! Oh, if you could only talk!” cried poor Glory, at last lifting her head and releasing the dog whom she had hugged till he choked.
His brown eyes looked back into her own pleading ones as if he, too, longed for the gift of speech and he licked her cheek as if he would comfort her. Then he threw back his own head, howled dismally, and dejectedly curled himself down beneath the captain’s hammock.
Little Take-a-Stitch pondered a moment what she had best do in order to find her grandfather and, having decided, made haste to dress. The cold water from the spigot in the corner refreshed her and seemed to clear her thoughts, but she did not stop to eat anything, though she offered a crust of the dry loaf to the dog. He, also, refused the food and the little girl understood why. Patting him on the head she exclaimed:
“We both of us can’t eat till he comes, can we, Bo’sn dear? Well, smart doggie, put on your sharpest smeller an’ help to track him whichever way he went. You smell an’ I’ll look, an’ ’twixt us we’ll hunt him quick’s-a-wink. Goin’ to find grandpa, Bo’sn Beck! Come along an’ find grandpa!”
Up sprang the terrier, all his dejection gone, and leaped and barked as joyfully as if he fully understood what she had said. Then, waiting just long enough to lock the tiny door and hide the key in its accustomed place, so that if the captain came home before she did he could let himself in, she started down the Lane, running at highest speed with Bo’sn keeping pace. So running, she passed the basement window where Meg-Laundress was rubbing away at her tub full of clothes and tossed that good woman a merry kiss.
“Guess the old cap’n’s back, ’less Glory never ’d look that gay,” thought Meg, and promptly reported her thought to Posy Jane who was just setting out for her day’s business. She was already over-late and was glad to accept Meg’s statement as fact and thus save the time it would have taken to visit the littlest house and learn there how matters really stood. It thus happened that neither of Glory’s best friends knew the truth of the case nor that the child had set off on a hopeless quest, without food or money or anything save her own strong love and will to help her.