“My family is all right, but I am just now hunting for that boy, Nat. Ain’t seen anything of him, have you?”
“Nat? No; has he run away?” asked Mr. Graves, accidentally letting out the very thing which he was afraid his wife would mention to Jonas if she were allowed to talk. “I mean—you have been using that switch on him lately,” he hastily added, after he had caught his breath.
“No, I hadn’t, but I wish I had,” declared Jonas, for the idea of Nat’s running away was the very thing that was uppermost in his mind. “I have used that boy altogether too well; and now that old man Nickerson has gone, he has cleared out.”
“Well, now, what does the fule boy want to run away for?” said Mr. Graves, looking down at the ground. “He will want some money, if he is going to do that.”
“He has plenty of it, or thinks he has,” said Jonas, angrily. “You ain’t seen Peleg around here lately, have you?”
“Peleg? No, he has gone out after the cows,” said Mr. Graves; and a moment later, as if to show how very much mistaken he was, one of the cows in the barnyard set up a prolonged lowing as if to inquire why somebody did not come out and milk her. “I declare, there’s the cows already,” added Mr. Graves, not at all abashed. “That boy is around here somewhere. Pe-leg,” he shouted, looking around as though he expected Peleg to appear.
“You needn’t call to him that way, pap, ‘cause he ain’t there,” said Mrs. Graves under the bed clothes. “Didn’t you hear him say that he was going fishing to-day?”
“That’s so; so I did. What do you want of Peleg, Jonas?”
“I just wanted to know if he could tell me where Nat was; but if he ain’t here, of course he can’t tell me. You’re sure he ain’t gone to Manchester along with Nat?”
“No,” said Mr. Graves, as if he were surprised to hear it. “What does he want to go down to Manchester for? If he don’t come home pretty soon I will go after him.”