Where had the children gone to? was another question. Back yard, side yard, front yard, cellar, shed, Mell searched. There were no small figures ranged about the pump, no voices replied to her calls. Mell ran to the gate. She strained her eyes down the road, this way, that way; not a sign of the little flock was visible in any direction.
Now Mell was frightened. "What will mother say?" she thought, and began to run distractedly along the road, crying and sobbing as she went, and telling herself that it wasn't her fault, that she only went upstairs to make the beds,—but here her conscience gave a great prick. It was but ten o'clock when she went upstairs to make the beds!
"Oh, dear!" she sobbed. "If only Tommy isn't drowned!" Drowning came into her head first, because her step-mother was always in an agony about the pond. The pond was a mile off at least, but Mrs. Davis never let the children even look that way if she could help it.
Toward the pond poor Mell bent her way; for she thought as Tommy had been strictly forbidden to go there, it was probably the very road he had taken. The sun beat on her head and she put up the parasol, which through all her trouble she had grasped firmly in her hand. Even under these dreadful circumstances, with the children lost, and the certainty of her step-mother's wrath before her, there was joy in carrying a parasol like that.
By and by she met a farmer with a yoke of oxen.
"Oh, please," said Mell, "have you seen five children going this way,—four girls and one little boy?"
The farmer hummed and hawed. "I did see some children," he said at last. "It was a good piece back, nearly an hour ago, I reckon. They was making for the pond?"
"Oh, dear!" sighed Mell. She thanked the farmer, and ran on faster than ever.
"Have you passed any children on this road?" she demanded of a boy with a wheelbarrow, who was the next person she met.
"Boys or girls?"