"Well, good-bye then. I am going a walk with your father, but in case of a change of weather, though it certainly doesn't look like it, I'll leave the cloak."
She turned and left them. An hour or two later, when she came home to the farm-house and stood for a moment looking up at the sky, it seemed to her as if her remark about the weather had been a shadow of coming events. For the bright blue sky had clouded over, a slight chilly breeze ruffled the leaves as if in friendly warning to the birds and the butterflies to get under shelter, and before many moments had passed large heavy drops began to fall, which soon grew into a regular downpour. What a changed world!
"What will the children do?" was the mother's first thought as she watched it. "It is too heavy to last, and fortunately there is no sign of thunder about. I don't see that there is anything to be done but to wait a little; they are certain to be under shelter in the wood, and any one going for them would be drenched in two minutes."
So she did her best to wait patiently and not to feel uneasy, though several times in the course of the next half-hour she went to the window to see if there were no sign of the rain abating. Alas, no! As heavily as ever, and even more steadily, it fell. Something must be done she decided, and she was just thinking of going to the kitchen to consult Mrs. Crosby, when as she turned from the window a curious object rolling or slowly hobbling down the hill-side caught her view. That was the way the children would come—what could that queer thing be? It was not too high, but far too broad to be a child, and its way of moving was a sort of jerky waddle through the bracken, very remarkable to see. Whatever it was, dwarf or goblin, it found its way difficult to steer, poor thing, for there, with a sudden fly, over it went altogether and lay for a moment or two struggling and twisting, till at last it managed to get up again and painfully strove to pursue its way.
The children's mother called their nurse.
"Esther," she said, "I cannot imagine what that creature is coming down the road. But it is in trouble evidently. Run off and see if you can help." Off ran kind-hearted Esther, and soon she was rewarded for her trouble. For as she got near to the queer-shaped bundle, she saw two pairs of eyes peering out at her, from the two arm-holes of the waterproof cloak, and in a moment the mystery was explained. Ted, in his anxiety for the two girls, had wrapped them up together in the cloak which his mother had left, and literally "bundled" them off, with the advice to get home as quickly as possible, while he followed with his loaded truck, the wood covered as well as he could manage with leafy branches which he tore down.
But "possible" was not quickly at all in the case of poor Cissy and her companion. Polly was of a calm and placid nature, with something of the resignation to evils that one sees in the peasant class all over the world; but Narcissa, impulsive and sensitive, with her dainty dislike to mud, and her unaccustomedness to such adventures, could not long restrain her tears, and under the waterproof cloak she cried sadly, feeling frightened too at the angry gusts of rain and wind which sounded to her like the voices of ogres waiting to seize them and carry them off to some dreadful cavern.
The summit of their misfortunes seemed reached when they toppled over and lay for a moment or two helplessly struggling on the wet ground. But oh, what delight to hear Esther's kind voice, and how Cissy clung to her and sobbed out her woes! She was more than half comforted again by the time they reached the farm-house, and just as mother was considering whether it would not be better to undress them in the kitchen before the fire and bring down their dry clothes, Master Ted, "very wet, yes very wet, oh very wet indeed," made his appearance, with rosy cheeks and a general look of self-satisfaction.
"Did they get home all right?" he said, cheerily. "It was a good thing you brought the cloak, mother. And the wood isn't so wet after all."