Peggy rose to her feet rather hastily. “Come on,” she said briskly. “We’ll begin. Probably that’ll be just the way to bring her.” And she wondered why it was that Claire’s patient sweetness was so much more trying than Amy’s fretful complaint.
But the device for bringing Aunt Abigail home proved unsuccessful. Peggy put her dinner on the back of the stove to keep warm, and it was still simmering, undisturbed, when the platter and the various serving dishes on the table had been scraped clean, for the loss of appetite of which Claire complained was by no means universal. The work of clearing the table and washing the dishes was usually protracted, for every other minute some one ran out on the porch to see if Aunt Abigail were approaching. By three o’clock a general uneasiness began to make itself evident.
“I believe I’ll go over to the place where those ferns grow,” Peggy declared. “Even if she’s forgotten all about her dinner, it can’t be good for her to go so long without eating. Don’t you want to come with me, Amy?”
Amy, who seemed less concerned than any of the company, blithely accepted the invitation. “We’ll probably find her with a great armful of ferns and her hat tipped over one ear, and she’ll be perfectly astonished to know that it’s after twelve o’clock. Oh, you don’t know Aunt Abigail as well as I do.”
But though they searched the section of the woods Jerry had designated as the habitat of the rare fern, and called Aunt Abigail’s name at frequent intervals, there was no answer, nor did they find anything to indicate that there had been an earlier visitor to the locality. Amy’s confidence seemed a little shaken by this discovery and she made no objection to the rapidity of their return to the cottage. Ruth came hurrying out to meet them. “Has she come?” Amy called, her voice betraying her change of mood.
“No. Haven’t you found her?” It was of course an unnecessary question, for the anxious faces of the two girls would have told that their quest had been unsuccessful, even if their failure had not been sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that Aunt Abigail was not accompanying them.
“We’d better go right over to Coles’,” Peggy said after a minute’s pause. “Perhaps Mrs. Cole found she was alone, and asked her to dinner.”
“I’ve been there,” was Ruth’s disappointing reply. “And I went down to Mrs. Snooks’, too. I thought Aunt Abigail might have gone there to borrow something. You know she was so unwilling to give up the idea. But Mrs. Snooks was sitting out on the porch, and she said she hadn’t seen her.”
The others had gathered around them as they stood talking. The speckled chicken, who, as a result of being brought up “by hand,” was developing an extravagant fondness for human society, came up peeping shrilly, evidently under the impression that in so sizable a gathering, there must be some one who had nothing better to do than minister to his wants. Hobo, too, made his appearance, and he alone of the company gave no sign of mental disturbance. Amy pushed him away impatiently as he rubbed against her, the effect of worry on Amy’s temperament having the not unusual result of making her short-tempered. Then a bright idea flashed into her head.
“Peggy, maybe he could track her.”