CHAPTER II.
WHERE IS THE WATCH?
“I ’M afraid,” said Mr. Percival at breakfast next morning, “that your watch will not be recovered, Pet. I sent Ruel over to the pond two hours ago, and he reports that the Indians are gone, bag and baggage. They generally stay only a few weeks at a time in any one spot.”
“I thought I saw a queer look in old Moll’s face when we left,” put in Ruel, joining the conversation with a down-East “hired-man’s” freedom. “You know she wouldn’t take any money, which, with an Injun, is ’nuff to make you suspect somethin’s up.”
Tom was sleeping late, and had not come down to breakfast. At The Pines, one of the comforts was that you could sleep just as long as you wanted to in the morning.
“They’re growing young things,” aunt Puss would say, “and they have to get up early all winter to get ready for school. It’s a pity if they can’t lie abed here, so long’s they’re resting, till afternoon, if they like.”
The real fact was that ordinarily the days were so filled with good times that nobody wished to lose an hour in the morning, and so all hands were up bright and early.
“How much do you think the watch was worth, Pet?” asked her aunt. “Bessie, let me give you another mug of milk.”
Pet sat next to aunt Puss, looking very pale and quiet this morning. It was observed that she started nervously every time she was addressed; but this remnant of yesterday’s fright wore off during the day.
“I don’t know exactly,” she answered, “but I think mamma paid six hundred francs for it in Geneva last year.”
“That’s about one hundred and twenty dollars,” said Mr. Percival. “It would be worth at least a hundred and fifty in America, when it was new.”