"Oh, Mrs. Fielding," poor Mrs. Sullivan was saying beseechingly, as she looked at mother's startled face, "do you know what's happened to Tim? We was to stay another week at maw's, but when Bob Hall drove into Bayville at dinner-time to-day and said he'd come after somebody that wanted to get took back here to Mr. Fielding's house, I knew it must a-been Tim took sick and sent for me! So we all piled right in without waitin' for me to belt down my Mother-Hubbard!"
"Jumping Jerusalem!" said father, and the calf bellowed dismally.
Investigation had shown the Sullivan cottage to be locked and barred, and the supposition was that Tim, although not already sick, was in a fair way to be so in the morning, as persistent telephoning on my part finally located him at the drug store with a crowd of friends whose company was both cheering and inebriating.
"I better git Bob to drive down there an' git 'im," Mrs. Sullivan suggested forlornly, looking at Bob, who was leaning against one of the big, white columns and twirling his cap around on one finger.
"For heaven's sake, don't," father objected. "He'll be just as likely to drive up with the county undertaker as with Tim Sullivan! I'll go myself."
"But who'll get the calf out of the fence corner?" mother asked anxiously, as father walked to the hat-rack for an umbrella.
"Me!" cried Bob, speaking for the first time, but to so much purpose that we all beamed gratitude upon him.
So, after being "much tossed about by land and on the deep," the calf was finally loosed from his pillory, the Sullivans were settled in the sanctuary of their own home, the lovely dinner was eaten in silence, and our family went grumpily to bed.
Then this morning early the three belated dinner guests drove in from Bayville. The two lesser lights caught the nine-o'clock car into the city, but Mr. Chalmers drove on to the little hotel in the village and later presented himself, in due calling season, at our house, with apologies for the catastrophe of last evening. Mother said he had spoken of it as catastrophe before I came into the room, but when he mentioned the accident to me later on in the day, as we two sat quite apart from the others, he referred to it as calamity.
Father and Rufe urged him to spend the day, an invitation which mother warmly seconded after a moment's quick recollection of how many of the dainties left over from last night's feast could be creamed and pâted and souffled.