“Fie!” said Mrs. Grimsby, with seeming impatience, “I only do it for my own convenience, so you needn’t say anything more about it.”
Just then they reached home, and Mrs. Grimsby went directly into her own room, leaving Hesper with a hopeful heart and smiling countenance.
At the beginning of the next week the school was opened. There were eight scholars besides Fred and Charlie and the Grimsby boys. Juliana knew very little about reading and spelling, so she improved the opportunity, and soon was able to assist Hesper, which she did very willingly. As for simple Johnny, he could not be persuaded to stay in the school, so Hesper let him go out to play as he had been in the habit of doing. He knew very well how to take care of himself, Moreover, he had such an innocent expression of countenance, and was so gentle and inoffensive, that every one was kind to him. At first Hesper used to worry a great deal about him, but she soon became accustomed to having him away. He never went far from home, and almost always returned at the right time. They could easily tell where he had been by the little tokens he brought back. Sometimes he would have a pinafore full of blocks from the ship-yard—a bunch of field flowers, or a handful of smooth white pebbles gathered on the seashore. But of late, he had puzzled them, for he had returned several times with a most beautiful bouquet of choice garden flowers, tastefully arranged and tied with a string, and sometimes with his little basket full of ripe, rosy apples and peaches.
“Who could be so good to him?” said Hesper; “it must be some lady, I know.” But the poor child could not tell, so the matter remained a mystery. One night he was out later than usual. The weather was now quite cold, so that Hesper felt all the more anxious. She wrapped her mother’s shawl about her, and went out in search of him, though she did not feel much alarmed, for she expected every moment to meet him. First she went to the ship-yard and along the seashore. Next to Capt. Clark’s, where a large party of boys were husking corn—then to uncle Nathan’s and aunt Nyna’s, but he could not be found at any of these places. It was now almost dark. The wind was cold and chilly, and a few light flakes of snow were falling. Hesper’s heart beat quickly, and she ran home as fast as possible to see if he was there, but nothing had been seen of him. Again she hastened forth, questioning the people along the street, but they could give her no information. At length she met a little fellow, who told her he saw Johnny not long before dark, gathering acorns in the wood beyond the Rolling Mill. Away she flew as fast as her feet would carry her, and was soon ranging about in the midst of the wood. It was so dark among the trees she could not see the way before her—- the briers laid fast hold of her—she stumbled over the roots in her pathway, and finally lost one shoe in the low, swampy ground, whither she had unconsciously wandered, yet still she urged her way onward.
“Johnny! Johnny!” she called at the top of her voice, in the hope that he might make some sound in reply. She stopped to listen, but heard nothing save the mournful sighing of the winds among the pines, and the falling of withered leaves around her. She seemed utterly alone and desolate, and her heart failed her.
“O, merciful Father!” she exclaimed, “what shall I do!” and she burst into tears. Again she struggled onward in the midst of the darkness, till she came to the roadside. There, trembling with cold and excitement, she knelt down beneath a spreading oak, and lifting her hands, she cried out—
“O, Father in heaven! I pray thee to take pity on me and help me.” As she spoke, a bright light flashed upon her face, and looking out from the overhanging branches, she saw a man passing with a lantern.
“O, sir!” she exclaimed, as she sprang forward, “will you help me find my brother? He is lost in these woods, and it is so dark I cannot see one step before me.”