"Oh, if I had only gone after the child right away!" she exclaimed regretfully a hundred times, but this was of no use. What was to be done? Where should they look for Rita? Could she, perhaps, have gone after the people up to the rocks, with the little boy, with whom she had been seen the day before? The more she thought about this the more likely it seemed to her. If only there was someone to send up there immediately, she thought, before her mother had to be told about the matter.
The obliging woman offered to do this and to came back again as soon as possible, but it was a long and toilsome way; it would take more time than one would think from looking up there.
Fräulein Hohlweg promised her a handsome reward if she would only go and prevent Frau Feland from being frightened, and she was very hopeful that she would surely bring Rita back home with her. But the way was farther than Fräulein had thought, and long before the messenger could return Frau Feland came down from her room and wished to take a walk with the children. Then everything had to be told her.
At the first great shock the mother wanted to go out herself at once, to look for the child and see where she could be, but Fräulein was so sure that Rita must have run off with the little boy that Frau Feland calmed herself and decided to wait for the return of Kaspar's wife. She really didn't have a peaceful moment. She ran from one window to the other then back to the door, and then around the house. The time seemed so long to her,—so long!
At last, after two weary hours, the woman came back, panting and glowing from the heat, but—she came alone, without Rita. Martin had gone up to the rocks, with his whole family early in the morning, to make hay, and had remained there. No one had seen the child since the day before. Moreover, along the way the woman had asked for her, here and there, but no trace of her was to be found.
Then the mother broke out into loud lament.
"Oh, if only my husband were here!" she cried. "Where shall we find people to hunt for the child? What must we do? Kind woman, what can we do?"
The woman offered to run around in the huts and summon the people to start out to search before it should be dark; they would have to go up along by the forest-brook, and into the forest.
"If only they hadn't all gone up to make hay," she complained, but she started off immediately. Ella, who now realized what might have happened to Rita, began to weep bitterly.
"Oh, Mamma, if Rita has fallen into the brook, which roars so frightfully, or if she went into the woods and can't find her way!" she sobbed. "Oh, let us go right into the woods. She will surely be so frightened!"