Mrs. Clement must have been very busy, for she did not come to comfort me. Perhaps she, too, thought I was a fiend. But I was too proud to seek to explain matters to any one. If they wanted to believe I was bad, they might think I was as bad as ever they liked.
In my open-worked pinafore and little house slippers, bare-headed and bare-armed, I stole anxiously down-stairs. The baker was carrying in the bread, and the hall-door was open. This was my chance, and I seized it. Ah, there were the wide long streets, and however cruel the big people might be who went up and down them, at least they could not hurt me, for I did not belong to any of them.
Like a frightened hare I scurried along the pavement until I came to a big crossing. I paused here in new peril. To go over alone meant to risk contact with the wheels and horses continually rolling and stamping by. I had not the courage to do this, and I stood gazing disconsolately across at the happy people walking so unconcernedly on the other side. While I stood there a policeman marched up in a leisurely fashion. He looked as if he might help a little girl, and I knew when robbers attacked you the proper person to assist you was a policeman.
"Please, Mr. Policeman, will you take me across the street?" I asked, going boldly up to him.
The amiable giant put out his hand, grasped my eager fingers, and I pattered along at his side as he gravely led me over the crossing. Without a word, I raced ahead; the quicker I ran, the quicker I believed I would reach Mamma Cochrane's house, and my dear friends, nurse, and Louie, and Mary Jane.
In what direction I ran I know not to-day; I seemed to have been running down interminable streets for hours and hours, till at last my feet in their thin slippers began to ache. Gradually my legs stiffened, and it was less and less easy to continue running. Nobody stopped me, but I have an idea many stared at me. I hardly knew which I most feared, to be overtaken and carried back to my mother, or to be let die of hunger in those big unfriendly streets. Either prospect seemed so terrible to me in a moment of lucid vision, that I at once dropped upon a doorstep and began to cry.
"What's the matter, little lady?" a tall policeman asked, with a smile of insidious kindliness.
"I want to find my everyday mamma so badly," I sobbed. "But it's so far away,—I'm very tired, and nobody is sorry for me, though I'm so unhappy."
I gazed anxiously up into the face of the big policeman, and wondered if such a very big person could possibly understand and pity the sorrows of such a very small person as myself.
"What's your name?" asked the big policeman.