And then a dreadful thought flashed through her mind. Could it be possible they had been drowned in the ford? But that moment her eyes saw something that made her heart leap for joy, something that looked drowned enough, but wasn’t. Rudolph was running up the hill as fast as his soaking clothing would let him, and, reaching the door breathless enough, he sank down on the floor of the porch.
“Oh, Mrs. Gerald,” he said, as soon as he could catch his breath, “Mabel and Tattine are all right; they’re safe in the log play-house at the Cornwells’, but we’ve had an awful fright. Is Barney home? When the hail came I tied him to a tree and we ran into the log house, but he broke away the next minute and took to his heels and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Barney’s an awful fraud, Mrs. Gerald.”
But Mrs. Gerald had no time just then to give heed to Barney’s misdoings. Seizing a wrap from the hall, she ordered Rudolph into the house and to bed, as quickly as he could be gotten there, sent Philip to Rudolph’s Mother with the word that the children were safe, and then started off in the wagonette to bring Mabel and Tattine home.
“Mamma,” said Tattine, snuggling her wet little self close to her Mother’s side in the carriage, “Rudolph was just splendid, the way he hauled Barney and us and the cart out of the water, but Mamma, I am done with Barney now too. He’s not to be trusted either.”
Mrs. Gerald thought of two or three things that might be urged in Barney’s favor, but it did not seem kind even to attempt to reason with two such tired and soaking little specimens, so she only said, “Well, Barney can never again be trusted in the ford, that’s one sure thing.”
“No, indeed,” said Mabel warmly; “I would not give fifty cents for him.”
“You can have him for nothing,” said Tattine, with a wan little smile; “after this he can never be trusted in anything.”
CHAPTER VI. “IT IS THEIR NATURE TO.”
Tattine was getting on beautifully with her attempt to use Grandma Luty’s name at the proper time, and in the proper place, and she was getting on beautifully with grandma herself as well. She loved everything about her, and wished it need not be so very long till she could be a grandma herself, have white hair and wear snowy caps atop of it, and kerchiefs around her neck, and use gold eye-glasses and a knitting-basket. Grandma Luty, you see, was one of the dear, old-fashioned grandmothers. There are not many of them nowadays. Most of them seem to like to dress so you cannot tell a grandmother from just an ordinary everyday mother. If you have a grandmother—a nice old one, I mean—see if you cannot get her into the cap and kerchief, and then show her how lovely she looks in them. But what I was going to tell you was that Grandma Luty’s visit was all a joy to Tattine, and so when, just at daylight one morning, the setter puppies in their kennel at the back of the house commenced a prodigious barking, Tattine’s first thought was for Grandma.