Surprise, and perhaps a vague, unformulated anxiety, had quickened the lagging feet of the girls, so that when they came up the gravel walk leading to the door of the cottage, they were almost running. Peggy who was a little in the lead, was the first to reach the door. She turned the knob quickly, pushed till she was red in the face, gave the door a sharp shake and then stood staring blankly. “It’s locked!” she exclaimed.
“I’ll try the back door.” Amy started for the rear of the cottage, but the nimble Priscilla was ahead of her, and when Amy came panting to the back doorstep, met her with the startling news, “This is locked, too. Do you suppose she’s gone away?”
“I don’t know where she’d go unless it was to borrow something of Mrs. Snooks,” Amy though puzzled was not really anxious, as she was only too familiar with Aunt Abigail’s eccentric possibilities. “We’ll knock as hard as we can,” she suggested. “Maybe she lay down to take a nap and overslept.”
A vigorous tattoo began forthwith on the back door, to be reinforced presently by the ringing of the front door bell. Had Aunt Abigail been a rival of the celebrated Seven Sleepers the combined tumult would have been pretty sure to arouse her. Priscilla and Amy at length desisted, and returning to the front of the house, met the other girls coming to the rear. By this time every face was anxious.
“There’s just a chance that the woodshed door is open,” said Peggy. “Though she’s locked everything up so carefully that I don’t think it’s likely.” A moment’s investigation showed that this door, too, was firmly bolted, and Peggy returned to the sober girls grouped under the dining-room window. “She must have gone somewhere,” Peggy said. “Do you suppose she could have got tired of staying here all day by herself, and tried to find us in the pasture and lost her way?”
The suggestion struck a little chill through the listeners. The locked house, the setting sun, the mystery of Aunt Abigail’s disappearance had all combined to dissipate their previous cheerfulness. In addition to their anxiety about Aunt Abigail, certain unformulated doubts regarding their chances for supper and bed, weighed upon their spirits.
“Look!” cried Amy suddenly. “Look!” and pointed a directing finger upward. The shutter of one of the bedroom windows was conducting itself very strangely, now opening a trifle, and then slamming to as if it had suddenly changed its mind. But presently it opened sufficiently wide to give the watchers below a glimpse of snowy hair, arranged in a rather elaborate combination of coils and puffs.
“Aunt Abigail!” Amy shrieked, “oh, Aunt Abigail!” Her cry was echoed by the voices of the others, Dorothy’s treble sounding clearly above the rest. The shutter opened again, and an unmistakable Aunt Abigail looked down.
“Who’s there?”
“Why, it’s us!” Grammatical accuracy ceases to be important when people are tired and hungry, and, if the truth must be confessed, a little out of temper. “Do come down, and let us in.”