"'Bijah," said grandma Potter, "I must have Benny here to dinner; I can't have his place vacant. What can have kept him away?" she added, as if to herself. "I hope he hasn't been doing anything he ought not to—he's such a little rogue."
"Wal, I d' know's I should be for goin' so fur's to say that, Mis' Potter, but Benny is curis, and mebby he has slipped over to Spain or France before comin' round here," said 'Bijah.
"O dear!" groaned grandmother, the names of these far-away regions giving her a sense of exposure and danger, "I hope nothing has happened to my Benny. 'Bijah, you must harness up and go over and see what's the matter."
"Yes'm," said 'Bijah, turning to obey, and every boy set up a petition that he should go in the long wagon and let them go too. So in the long wagon they went, shouting and whistling and singing along, with their eyes wide open to catch a sight of Benny, if by chance he should be coming, loitering on his way. But not one of them looked in the right direction.
In spite of Benny's frequent little derelictions from the path he might have been expected to walk in, his mother was greatly surprised and troubled to hear that he had not arrived at his grandmother's, and, furthermore, that he had not been seen on the road.
"Why, nothing could have tempted him to stay away from grandma's," said she. "Still," she added after a moment's reflection, "he may have gone by the Brook road and met Johnny Barstow. If he has, and then stopped to do a little fishing, he would never think how the time was flying. I never saw a boy who had so little idea of time as Benny."
"Wal," said 'Bijah, "we'll go down the brook road way 'n see 'f we c'n ketch this young trout."
So they returned by the Brook, but found no Benny, and Johnny Barstow hadn't seen him.
Every ray of the calm smile which usually shone in grandma Potter's face faded when she saw 'Bijah and the boys come back without Benny and heard of their fruitless search. She sat silently down in her rocking-chair, and her dear, sweet old face was pale.
"'Bijah," said she at length, "you must take the colt and the light buggy and go—go somewhere—anywhere—everywhere, until you find him. No, boys, you can't go. 'Bijah mustn't be hindered."