Bonny Angel went to sleep; and, holding her snugly, Glory herself leaned back against the tree trunk where she was sitting and closed her own eyes. She did this the better to mature her plans for the search she meant to resume that very day, if possible, and certainly by the morrow at the latest. Now that Bonny was so nearly well, she must go on; and as her head whirled with the thoughts which swarmed it, it seemed to her that she had “grown as old as old since grandpa went away.”
Glory at last decided that she had best stop thinking and planning altogether, just for a moment, and go to sleep as Bonny Angel had done. She remembered that grandpa had often said that a nap of “forty winks” would clear his own head and set him up lively for the rest of the day. Whatever Captain Simon Beck, in his great wisdom said was right, must be so; and though it seemed very lazy for a big girl such as she to take “forty winks” on her own account and in the daytime, she did take them and with so many repetitions of the “forty” that the boarders had all come home across the fields before she roused again to know what was going on about her.
There was a hum of voices on the other side of the tree; and though they were low, as if not intended for her ear, they were also very earnest and in evident dispute over some subject which she gradually learned was none other than herself.
She had been going to call out to them, cheerily, but what she heard made her sit up and listen closely. Not very honorable, it may be, yet wholly natural, since Mistress Mary was insisting:
“There’s no use talkin’, Timothy Dowd, them two must pack to the first ‘Asylum’ will take ’em in. The sooner the better and this very day the best of all. ’Twas yourself brought ’em or sent ’em, and ’tis yourself must do the job. You can knock off work this half-day and get it settled.”
“Oh, but Mary, me cousin, by marriage that is. I hate it. I hate it worse nor ever was. Sure, it was bad enough touchin’ a match to them neat little clothes o’ theirs but forcin’ themselves away—Ah! Mary, mother o’ seven, think! What if ’twas one o’ your own, now?” wheedled Tim.
But Mary was not to be moved. Indeed, she dared not be. As Glory had already learned, Dennis Fogarty was the now useless gardener of the rich family which lived in the great house on the hill beyond, and to whom the abused Queen Anne cottage and all the other red outbuildings visible belonged.
The rich people were very particular to have all things on their estate kept in perfect order; and though they had no fault to find with Dennis himself, whenever he was well enough to work, they did find much fault with his shiftless or careless wife, while the brood of noisy children was a constant annoyance to them, whenever they occupied Broadacres.
It was for this reason that during the family’s stay at the great house, Mary so seldom allowed her children out of the house; nor had Dennis ever permitted her to visit the place in person when there was any chance of her being seen by his employers. He felt that he held his own position merely by their generosity; nor did he approve of her boarding the workmen of the near-by railway. Still, he knew that his children must be fed, and, without the money she earned, how could they be?
Mary’s argument, then, against taking into her home two more children, to make bad matters worse, was a good one, and Timothy could find no real word to say against it. Yet he was all in sympathy with Glory’s search for the missing seaman, and how could he be the instrument of shutting her up in any institution, no matter how good, where she could not continue that search?