“Oh, we never intended to run away, Grandma, and worry you so,” insisted Robert.
“We's just sorry for the little girl,” murmured aunt Corinne.—“Why, I'll let it pass this time. Only never let me know you to do such a thing again.” The paw paw sprout fell to the ground, unwarped by use. Corinne and Robert were hearty in promising never to run away with Fairy Carrie or any other party again.
This serious business completed, the grandmother turned her attention to the child in the cart.
“How sound asleep the little thing is,” she observed, smoothing Fairy Carrie's cheek from dark eye-circle to chin, “and her flesh so cold!”
“She's just slept that way ever since J. D. put her in his cart!” exclaimed aunt Corinne. “We made her open her eyes and take some breakfast in her mouth, but she went to sleep again while she's eatin'.”
“And we let her sleep ever since,” added Bobaday. “It didn't make a bit of difference whether the cart went jolt-erty-jolt over stones or run smooth in the dust. And we shaded her face with bushes.”
“She's not well,” said their experienced elder. “The poor little thing may have some catching disease! It's a pretty face. I wonder whose child she is? You oughtn't to set up your judgment and carry a little child off with you from her friends. I hardly know what we'll do about it.”
“Oh, but they wern't her friends, Ma Padgett,” asserted aunt Corinne solemnly. “She isn't the pig-headed man's little girl. Nor any of them ain't her folks. Bobaday thinks they stole her away.”
“If she'd only wake up and talk,” said Robert, “maybe she could tell us where she lives. But she was afraid of the show people.”
“I should think that was likely,” said Grandma Padgett.