Polly, feeling, if Pa were slipped in a pocket and carried off, it would be a calamity indeed, said heartily, "I'll get my jacket and cap and come right out."
"She looks honest; I guess I hain't done no harm to tell her about our buzzom pin," said the old woman to herself as Polly disappeared. Mamsie being asleep, Polly could say nothing to her, but feeling that she would allow it if she knew, she threw on her things and ran out to meet the old woman, with a shawl tied over her nightcap and a big long cape on.
"I tell you she's in highstrikes," said the old woman, going down the hall. "That's our room, 37, an' I've seen you an' your folks goin' by, so I feel in some ways acquainted. An' if I don't find Pa, I'll be flabbergasted myself."
"Do let us hurry," said Polly, her mind now only on Pa. So they went down the stairs and out by the door and up the rocky path just where the old woman said she and sister Car'line took when they went out to see the sunrise.
"An' I wish we'd kept in bed," ejaculated Polly's companion. "I most lost my teeth out, they chattered so; and so did Car'line hers. But that wouldn't 'a' been nothin' to losin' Pa, cause we could 'a' got more teeth; but how could we 'a' got him took when he was nineteen and so handsome? There! here we stopped, just at this identical spot!"
"Well, I think we shall find it," said Polly, consolingly. "How did the pin look?" she asked, for the first time remembering to ask, and beginning to poke around in the crevices.
"My land sakes! I never see such a girl for wanting to be told over and over," exclaimed the old woman, irritably, picking up first one ample gaiter and then another to warm her cold toes in her hands. "Haven't I told you he was awful handsome? Well, he had on his blue coat and big brass buttons for one thing, an' his shirt front was ruffled. And—"
"Was it gold around it?" asked Polly, poking away busily.
"Gold? I guess it was; and there was dents in it, where Car'line an' I bit into it when we were babies, 'cause mother give it to us when our teeth was comin'—'twas better'n a chicken bone, she said."
"Oh," said Polly.