Aunt Sarah had very good eyes indeed. She had already spied the party and she could see in the back of the van.
"It is Tom Jonah!" she exclaimed. "They must be stopped. How dared those men take our dog?"
Mrs. MacCall, who had no shoes on, could not hurry out. But Aunt Sarah was dressed for company as she always was in the afternoon. She amazed the sputtering housekeeper by stopping only to throw a fleecy hood over her hair before hurrying out of the front door of the Corner House.
Aunt Sarah Maltby seldom left the premises save for church on Sunday. She did not even ride much in the girls' motor-car. She had made up her mind that an automobile was an unnecessary luxury and a "new-fangled notion" anyway; therefore she seldom allowed herself to be coaxed into the car.
She never went calling, claiming vigorously that she was "no gadabout, she hoped." It was an astonishing sight, therefore, to see her marching along Willow Street in the wake of the crying, excited children, who themselves followed in the wake of the dog catchers' van.
The van traveled so fast that Tess and Dot and Sammy could scarcely keep it in sight; while the children were so far ahead of Aunt Sarah that the old woman could not attract their attention when she called.
It was a most embarrassing situation, to say the least. To add to its ridiculousness, Mrs. MacCall met Agnes as she came in swinging her books, and told her at the side door what had happened.
Agnes flung down her books and "hoo-hooed" with all her might for Neale O'Neil. As soon as he answered, sticking his head out of his little bedroom window under the eaves of Con Murphy's cottage, Agnes left the housekeeper and the excited Finnish girl to explain the difficulty to Neale, while she ran after Aunt Sarah.
Soon, therefore, there was a procession of excited Corner House folk trailing through the Milton Streets to the pound. Sammy and the two little girls trotting on behind the dog catchers' van; then Aunt Sarah Maltby, looking neither to right nor left but appearing very stern indeed; then Agnes running as hard as she could run; followed by Neale at a steady lope.
The boy soon overtook his girl chum.