“Maybe. Well, now, you know everybody was peering and looking this way and that, all over the big stage-coach. ‘I don’t see anything broken,’ said the little thin man, getting down on his knees on the hard frozen ground to examine it underneath.
“‘And neither do I,’ said the big fat woman very angrily; ‘and I’m just going to get in again.’
“‘No you won’t, either, ma’am,’ declared the cross little stage-driver; ‘for this is my stage-coach, and I tell you I heard something crack.’
“‘’Twas a piece of a stone in the road, I guess,’ said the thin little man, getting up from his knees, and brushing the dirt off.
“‘Or a stick you ran over most likely,’ said another.
“But the little old stage-driver said, ‘No,’ very crossly; ‘it wasn’t either of these things.’ It sounded just like the bottom of his stage-coach cracking, and he wasn’t going to have it smashed. And he kept them all out there in the cold, till he looked over and under and around it very carefully. At last, as he couldn’t find anything, not even the smallest, tiniest bit of a crack, he let them get in again. So the big fat woman picked up her parrot in the cage, with the newspaper tied over it, all except a hole in the top for it to breathe through, and everybody else got their things and clambered in,—all but the three boys, who couldn’t find the chicken-pie they were carrying to their grandmother, that was under the bush by the roadside.”
“Oh, dear me!” they all exclaimed, while Phronsie clasped her small hands in despair, and sat quite still.
“No, it wasn’t there,” declared Polly, shaking her brown head,—“not so much as a scrap of the crust, nor a bit of the dish, nor a single speck of the basket. And oh, how those boys did feel!”
“What did they do?” cried Joel, feeling such a calamity not to be borne.
“They just couldn’t do anything,” said Polly. “And down they sat on three stones by the roadside. And everybody had stopped getting in, and turned to help look for the pie. And pretty soon they all heard a dreadful noise.”