“Good gracious, listen to the boy!” cried the flyaway scathingly. “As though that could have anything to do with Joe!”
“It may have a good deal to do with Joe; or with his disappearance, at any rate,” said Nat quietly. Once more Dorothy reached her hand out pleadingly toward him.
“What has this to do with Joe?” she asked faintly.
“We don’t know, Dot. And, of course, it may not have a thing to do with him. It seemed rather an odd coincidence that Joe should disappear on the very day that Haskell’s toy and stationery store burned down.”
“It was the largest store of its kind in North Birchlands,” murmured Dorothy, hardly knowing what she said. “And you say Joe disappeared at about the same time? Oh, Joe, foolish boy, where are you now? What have you done?”
Dorothy buried her face in her hands and Tavia rose from her place beside Nat and encircled Dorothy in a strangling embrace.
“Never you mind, Doro Doodlekins,” she cried stoutly. “We’ll find that young brother of yours or know the reason why!”
But Dorothy was not to be so easily consoled. For years, since the death of her mother, Dorothy Dale, young as she was, had taken the place of their mother to her two younger brothers, Joe and Roger. The boys were good boys, but mischievous, and Dorothy had spent many anxious moments over them.
The adventures of Dorothy, Tavia and their friends begin with the first volume of this series, entitled “Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-Day.” At that time the Dale family lived in Dalton, a small town in New York State. Major Dale owned and edited The Dalton Bugle and upon the success of this journal depended the welfare of his family. Stricken desperately ill in the midst of a campaign to “clean up” Dalton, the existence of the Bugle was threatened, as well as the efforts of the better element in town to establish prohibition.
Dorothy, a mere girl at that time, came gallantly to the rescue, getting out the paper when her father was unable to do so, and in other ways doing much toward saving the day.