Obed and Orah liked this so much that they ran and clambered into the cart as fast as they could, Orah climbing in over the spokes of a wheel. Mr. Furlong fastened Obed's cap on by tying around it a stout piece of line.
When they had ridden several miles on their way to mill, they met a boy on horseback galloping at a furious rate. The moment this boy saw Mr. Furlong, he pulled up his horse—he nearly fell off behind in doing so—and said he, "Mr. Furlong, your sister at Locust Point has heard bad news, and wants to see you immediately."
Mr. Furlong drove as fast as he could, until he came to the road which turned off to Locust Point. Here he set the children down, and showed Obed, not quite half a mile ahead of them, a large white building with a flag flying from the top. "There," said he, "your aunt Debby, you know, lives next to that white building. It is a straight road. I am sorry to leave you. Keep out of the way of the horses, and go directly to her house." Mr. Furlong then drove to Locust Point.
Now after the two children had walked a short distance, they came to a road which led across the road in which they were walking, and along this cross-road were running boys and girls, some barefoot, some bare-headed, some drawing baby carriages at such a rate that the babies were nearly thrown out; and all that these boys and girls would say was, "Baker's cart! baker's cart!" At last Obed and Orah found out that a baker's cart had upset in coming through the woods, and had left first-rate things to eat scattered all about. Our two children found a whole half sheet of gingerbread, which was not sandy, to speak of; and as they sat eating it, they looked through some bushes down a hill, and saw there something which looked like a molasses cooky. They scrambled down, the blackberry vines doing damage to their clothes, and found two molasses cookies, and each took one. But before Orah had finished hers she leaned her head on a grassy hummock, and fell asleep. When she awoke, sad to relate, they turned the wrong way, and went farther and farther and farther into the woods. After walking a long time, they came to a brook, and stopped there to drink. They had to lie flat on the ground, and suck up the water. Orah took off her shoes and stockings, because there was sand in them, and dipped her feet in the brook. Obed pulled hard, but he could not pull her stockings on over her wet feet, and she had to carry them and her shoes in her hand. The woods became thicker as the children walked on, and the trees taller. Obed began to cry. "Oh dear!" he said; "we are lost! we are lost!"
"Oh, I want to see my ma! I do! I do!" said Orah, and burst out crying. Crying?—roaring!—so the man said who heard it.
This was a charcoal man who happened along just then, driving an empty charcoal cart. He kindly asked them where they lived, and whither they were going. After Obed had told him, he said to them, "You poor little children! You are dirty and ragged, and you are a long way from your aunt Debby's. I shall pass near your father's house, and would you like to take a ride with me?" Then, as they seemed willing, he helped them into his cart, dropping them at the bottom as the safest place. Obed, however, by putting his toes into knot-holes and cracks, climbed high enough to put his head over the top, and Orah found a loose board which she could shove aside, and so push her head through and look up at Obed.
Now as they were rattling down a steep hill not a great way from home, a slender young lady started from the sidewalk, and ran after them, shouting and waving her parasol in the most frantic manner. The charcoal man did not hear her. This frantic and slender young lady was the young lady who made for Mr. St. Clair the smoking-cap done in the Persian pattern slightly mingled with the Greek, and embroidered with the shaded worsteds before mentioned, mingled with stitches of silk and beads of silver.
It is not strange that upon seeing that smoking-cap, which had cost her so much time and labor and money, appearing over the top of a charcoal cart on the head of a sooty little boy—it is not strange, I say, that the slender young lady went to Mr. St. Clair and asked what it all meant. She found Mr. St. Clair sitting upon the door-step, watching the sunset sky. Mr. St. Clair declared that he had spent the whole day in looking for the smoking-cap, and that it must have been stolen. Mr. and Mrs. Stimpcett came out, and said they had been looking for the cap all day, and had felt badly on account of its loss. At this moment, grandma, who was confined to her room with rheumatism, called down from a chamber window that there were two little beggar children coming round the barn—colored children, she thought.