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TROUBLE FOR JOEL
There was an awful pause, for everybody caught the last words. Joel slid to the floor in a little heap. Mrs. Chatterton spoke up quickly.
"It's easy enough to see where it went," and she gave a little laugh.
"Come on, Joe." Jasper sprang up and shook Joel's arm. "We'll go and hunt for it."
"I'll go, too." Van and Percy screamed it together. Now that any trouble had come to Joel, each vied with the other to see which could work the faster to help matters.
"I laid it—right down. Oh, dear me!" Joel was pretty far gone in distress by this time, and blubbered miserably, as they all raced across the greensward, Polly and Alexia following swiftly. "Hold on there, James," ordered Jasper, to one of the three men busy dismantling the post office of its improvised trimmings of pine branches.
"Eh—eh, sor? Stop, boys," said James to the workmen within the arbor.
"We have lost something," panted Jasper, as the whole group precipitated themselves up to the spot.
"Is that so, sor?" said James, in great concern. "Well, if I'd 'a' known it, I'd 'a' kept a sharp eye out for it, sor." Polly and Alexia were already in the arbor in the thickest of the green branches scattered over the floor, and the boys were picking and pulling wildly, everywhere a banknote could be supposed to hide. "What was it, sor?"