“No, it can’t be done,” he said at last, speaking aloud and firmly. “Davie Carson, I am ashamed of you! A package of medicine in your pocket that the doctor said an old lady was anxiously waiting for, and you thinking about stopping on an errand of your own. Just march down to Coleman Street as fast as your feet can carry you!”
And the order was meekly obeyed. Here he was detained for minutes which seemed like hours to him. The sound of martial music was heard in the near distance, and people all along the streets were dodging to the doors to see if anything was to be seen; but the old lady’s daughter wanted to write a note to the doctor to send back by Davie. She would not be a minute, she said; but she was.
“I might call for the note on my way home,” Davie timidly suggested. But she said, “O, no! that was not worth while; she could just as well write it now, and make sure of it; she would have it ready very soon.” And the sound of music drew nearer and nearer, until it passed the corner and faded in the distance; and the note was ready at last.
Davie crowded it into his pocket, tried to listen respectfully to several messages besides, and went down the stairs three steps at a time to follow that fading music. The street was nearly deserted; all the boys had rushed out of sight with the procession. Davie took long strides in the same direction, and wondered if it would be improper to break into a run.
Appearing at that moment around the corner ahead of him was a belated group—a father, mother and two children; odd-looking people, queerly dressed, and seeming to be entirely out of place in a town.
“Halloo! what’s the matter now?” Another corner had been reached and turned by the people ahead of him, with the exception of the youngest of the group, who had tumbled down; it was her outcry which roused him. He picked her up, brushing the dust and soil from her clothes, straightening the much bent sunbonnet, and urging her not to cry, that they would find the others in a jiffy. She stopped crying the moment she discovered herself in kind hands, and looked confidingly at Davie out of great blue eyes, and slipped her small brown hand into his with great satisfaction. Then they two turned the corner, and were at once in a crowd. The thing which astonished and troubled him was, that the father and mother and older sister of his little girl seemed to have disappeared. For a weary half-hour the two jostled against the crowd and stared and hunted. At last there darted toward him an angry father, talking broken English in loud tones, followed by an angrier mother and a crying little girl. “What was he doing with Gretchen? How dare he steal their Gretchen and make off with her! Bad, wicked boy! The police should know all about it, that they should!” In vain Davie tried to explain; they were too excited and frightened to listen to explanations. In the midst of Davie’s attempts two well-dressed boys standing near, broke into laughter, and so confused him that he stopped short, and the enraged family trudged away, his little girl in his arms, and the father shaking his head at Davie. But the little girl looked back and smiled lovingly on him.
Then Davie found that the crowd were trying to get near the band stand.
“Come this way,” said one of the boys who had laughed, touching his shoulder; “there is a chance to slip in behind here and get a first-rate position.” Davie thanked them, and was just going to slip in, when a little girl who was flying past, going in the opposite direction from the pushing crowd, jostled against him, and as she did so dropped from under her arm a small package. Davie picked it up and looked eagerly after the girl, shouting, “Hold on, you’ve lost something!” But she flew like the wind.
“You can’t catch her,” said a man; “she is lost in the jam by this time. You may as well pocket the bundle and call it Fourth of July luck.”
“And you will lose your chance in here if you don’t come this minute,” said one of the boys, trying to keep a way open for him.