Aunt Martha cordially invited the two cousins to dine. They thanked her, but no, they must find the wheelbarrow. "We shan't say, certain positive, that bugglers took it, but we s'pose so," said Dotty, softening her judgment, as she remembered her mistake about the "screw-up pencil." They went home through the broiling sun, but found no trace of the wheelbarrow.
"It's a dreadful thing," said Prudy, lazily, "but I don't feel as bad as I should if I was fairly awake."
"Me, too," yawned Dotty; "I wish we could lie down under the trees, and go to sleep."
They had been a long while in the close saloon, inhaling ether, and this was the cause of their languor. As they entered the yard they met Horace.
"O, dear," said Dotty, trying to look as sorry as she knew she ought to feel, "that wheel—"
"What!" exclaimed Prudy.
There, under a syringa tree in the garden, stood the wheelbarrow. The girls rubbed their eyes, and wondered if they were walking in their sleep.
"That thing trundled itself in here about half an hour ago," said Horace, gravely. "You may know I was surprised to look up, and see it coming without hands, just rolling along like a velocipede."
Dotty eyed the runaway wheelbarrow stupidly. "I don't believe it," said she, flatly.
Horace laughed; and then the fog cleared away from Dotty's mind in a minute.