“Where shall we go now?” asked Bessie. “Shall we really go to Lottie’s after we lose the bundle?”
“No indeed! They’d tease us to death about it. I don’t know where we’ll go,” she added, for she was getting rather cross. “I wish we’d left the old cat in the cellar anyway; it was a silly plan to do this.”
“I think you’re real mean to talk so,” said Bessie indignantly, for it was her plan, you remember. “I don’t care if the whole town knows it! it wasn’t my fault anyway—’n’ I’m going home tomorrow—so there!”
This brought Helen to her senses, for she didn’t want Bessie to go home, and she remembered that she was the one who had spilled the medicine.
“I didn’t mean that”—she said quickly; “I meant going in the stage ’n’ all that.”
During this little talk the girls had walked a block or two. “But where shall we go now?” asked Bessie anxiously, for she felt lost among so many streets all looking just alike.
“There’s a ferry at the end of the street,” said Helen, brightening up; “I didn’t think of that. We might cross it and lose the bundle in the river.”
“That’ll be easy,” said Bessie, and with fresh courage they walked on.
It was a long way to the ferry, and two rather tired girls went on to the boat, having paid their fare with the last penny they had, for they had expected to walk home from Lottie’s. They forgot until they had started that they had no money to get back, and that thought so frightened Helen that she almost forgot about the first pressing business of getting rid of her package.
There seemed to be as much trouble about that as ever, for the boat was full of passengers and somebody was all the time looking at them. They dared not drop it in when any one was looking, for fear they would think it very queer, and perhaps try to get it for them. Helen had heard of such things.