CHAPTER XV. THE LOST TRAIL
Mr. Day had not yet gone to bed when the young folks reached the house; but Mrs. Watkins had long since retired. The light in the living room assured Janice that her father awaited her return, and bidding Amy and Gummy good-night at the gate, she ran into the house in great excitement.
"Oh, Daddy! Daddy! Guess!" she cried to him. "Just think! She broke a big cutglass dish, and I'm 'most sure it's Olga—"
"Wait!" exclaimed Mr. Day, putting up both hands. "Mercy, I pray, my dear. I don't know what you are talking about."
"But you know Olga, Daddy."
"To my sorrow," he groaned, "It can't be that you have found out anything about that Swedish girl? I have been searching Pickletown again this evening."
"Oh, Daddy!" she cried, "maybe Olga is just where you can find her to-morrow. And she did break one of Mrs. Latham's very best dishes, and—"
"Let us hear all about this in due order," laughed Broxton Day. "I can see that you are far too much excited to go promptly to bed. Explain yourself, my dear."
When he had heard it all, he did not appear to be as much impressed as Janice expected him to be. It was a small chance, in his opinion, that the girl who had broken Mrs. Latham's dish was the same Olga who had for two months held sway in the Day kitchen.
"But we will make a pilgrimage to the cottage on the back of the Latham farm," Daddy promised. "If I can get away from the bank early to-morrow afternoon, we will go. I know the place, and there is a family of Swedish people living there. Of course, by chance, it might be Olga your friend Gummy followed home."