The windows were raised, the hideously pictured curtains were not to be seen, and the door stood wide open.
“Now you see,” came a taunt from the crowd. “They’s gone, ain’t they? What did we tell you? Now, ain’t they gone?”
“Oh, do stop,” begged Barbara. “Of course they are gone. But why shouldn’t they move if they wanted to?” This was by no means a question, rather it was a declaration. She was trying to answer her own question. “Why shouldn’t this family move if they wanted to?”
It takes so little to make excitement for such children as those surrounding her, that even the difference in their clothes and hers, the fact that she came in a car, and the still more surprising fact that she should evince interest in a family like Nicky’s, served to give the youngsters a wonderful time. And in spite of her protests they were bound to make the most of it. And they did.
As she turned back to the car she wondered what she would say to Miss Davis. If only she had not come along with them Babs might have told the whole story to Cara, and together they could have thought up something to do about it. Even a little delay would have helped so much. But there Miss Davis sat in the car, her head out the side, waiting eagerly for Babs’ return.
“I just can’t tell her they have moved,” Babs decided quickly, “not just yet. I’ll say there was no one in.”
“All out!” exclaimed Miss Davis, just as Barbara knew she would. “But we’ve got to find that boy——”
“I’ll come back with Cara in a little while,” Babs interrupted. “You see, those people have to work, even the children, and it’s pretty early to expect to find them around home.”
“But that boy,” (how Barbara wished she would not so persistently attack Nicky) “he must be around some place. It seems to me I have met him along the road every day this summer but just today,” wailed Miss Davis.
“Don’t worry,” Cara ventured to remark. “We know how to find the youngsters; don’t we Babs?” and she shot a look at Babs that was infinitely comforting.