“I’ll call up the Big House now,” Mrs. Dore said quietly. “We can’t handle this alone any longer.” She started towards the door and automatically the others followed her in a silent, down-cast file.
And then suddenly, Rosie screamed, “There’s Betsy now!”
The whole group turned; stood petrified.
Maida followed Rosie’s scream with “And what is she carrying in her arms?”
And then the whole group broke and ran in the direction of House Rock.
Betsy was coming down the trail toward the Little House. The moon was fairly high now and it shown full on the erect little figure and the excited sparkling little face. Her dress was soiled and torn. Her hair ribbon had gone and her curls hung helter-skelter about her rosy cheeks. Her great eyes shone like baby moons as her gaze fell on the group running towards her. A trusting smile parted her red lips; showed all her little white mice teeth.
“She’s carrying a fawn!” Arthur exclaimed as he neared her. “Why, it can’t be a day old!”
Betsy was carrying a fawn. As they surrounded her, she handed it trustfully over into Arthur’s extended hands. “I finded it myself,” she announced proudly. “I ranned and I ranned and I ranned. And it runned and it runned and it runned. But I ranned faster than it runned and pretty soon it was all tired out and I catched it.”
This was all of her adventure that they ever got out of Betsy. Conjecture later filled in these meager outlines; that Betsy had been coming home with her doll, Hildegarde, when this stray from the Westabrook preserves crossed her path. Dropping Hildegarde—they found her a few moments later, not far from House Rock—she chased the poor little creature over trails, through bushes, across rocks until she ran him down. Then picking him up in her arms, she found the path by some lucky accident and came home.
“Mother of God!” Mrs. Dore said, hugging Betsy again and again, “the child looked like the young St. John coming down the path.”