CHAPTER V

GYPSY MAKES A DISCOVERY

Gypsy turned very pale.

"Where are they?" persisted Tom. And just then her mother came out from the parlor.

"Why, Gypsy, where are the children?"

"I'm afraid Joy didn't know the way," said Gypsy, slowly.

"Did you let her come home alone?"

"Yes'm. She was tired of the chestnuts, and Winnie fell into the ditch. Oh, mother!"

Mrs. Breynton did not say one word. She began to put on her things very fast, and Tom hurried up to the store for his father. They hunted everywhere, through the fields and in the village; they inquired of every shop-keeper and every passer, but no one had seen a girl in black, with a little boy. There were plenty of girls, and an abundance of little boys to be found at a great variety of places, but most of the girls wore green-checked dresses, and the boys were in ragged jackets. Gypsy retraced every step of the way carefully from the roadside to the chestnut-trees. Mr. Jonathan Jones, delighted that he had actually caught somebody on his plowed land, came running down with a terrible scolding on his lips. But when he saw Gypsy's utterly wretched face and heard her story, he helped her instead to search the chestnut grove and the surrounding fields all over. But there was not a flutter of Joy's black dress, not an echo of Winnie's cry. The sunset was fading fast in the west, long shadows were slanting down the valley, and the blaze of the maples was growing faint. On the mountains it was quite blotted out by the gathering darkness.

"What shall I do?" cried Gypsy, thinking, with a great sinking at her heart, how cold the nights were now, and how early it grew quite dark.

"Hev you been 'long that ere cross-road 't opens aout through the woods onto the three-mile square?" asked Mr. Jonathan. "I've been a thinkin' on't as heow the young uns might ha took that ere ef they was flustered beout knowin' the way neow mos' likely."

"Oh, what a splendid, good man you are!" said Gypsy, jumping up and down, and clapping her hands with delight. "Nobody thought of that, and I'll never run over your plowed-up land again as long as ever I live, and I'm going right to tell father, and you see if I do!"

Her father wondered that they had not thought of it, and old Billy was harnessed in a hurry, and they started for the three-mile cross-roads. Gypsy went with them. Nobody spoke to her except to ask questions now and then as to the precise direction the children took, and the time they started for home. Gypsy leaned back in the carriage, peering out into the gloom on either side, calling Joy's name now and then, or Winnie's, and busy with her own wretched thoughts. Whatever they were, she did not very soon forget them.

It was very dark now, and very cold; the crisp frost glistened on the grass, and an ugly-looking red moon peered over the mountain. It seemed to Gypsy like a great, glaring eye, that was singling her out and following her, and asking, "Where are Joy and Winnie?" over and over. "Gypsy Breynton, Gypsy Breynton, where are Joy and Winnie?" She turned around with her back to it, so as not to see it.

Once they passed an old woman on the road hobbling along with a stick. Mr. Breynton reined up and asked if she had seen anything of two children.

"Haow?" said the old woman.

"Have you seen anything of two children along here?"

"Chilblains? No, I don't have none this time o' year, an' I don't know what business it is o' yourn, nuther."

"Children!" shouted Mr. Breynton; "two children , a boy and a girl."

"Speak a little louder, can't you? I'm deaf," said the old woman.

"Have you—seen anything—of—two—children—a little boy, and a girl in black?"

"Chickens? black chickens?" said the old woman, with an angry shake of the head; "no, I hain't got no chickens for yer. My pullet's white, and I set a heap on't an' wouldn't sell it to nobody as come askin' oncivil questions of a lone, lorn widdy. Besides, the cat eat it up las' week, feathers 'n' all."

Mr. Breynton concluded there was not much information to be had in that quarter, and drove on.

A little way farther they came across a small boy turning somersets in the ditch. Mr. Breynton stopped again and repeated his questions.

"How many of 'em?" asked the boy, with a thoughtful look.

"Two, a boy and a girl."

"Two?"

"Yes."

"A boy and a girl?"

"Yes."

"You said one was a boy and t'other was a girl?" repeated the small boy, looking very bright.

"Yes. The boy was quite small, and the girl wore a black dress. They're lost, and we're trying to find them."

"Be you, now, really!" said the small boy, apparently struck with sudden and overwhelming admiration. "That is terribly good in you. Seems to me now I reckon I see two young uns 'long here somewhars, didn't I? Le' me see."

"Oh, where, where?" cried Gypsy. "Oh, I'm so glad! Did the little boy have on a plaid jacket and brown coat?"

"Waal, now, seems as ef 'twas somethin' like that."

"And the girl wore a hat and a long veil?" pursued Gypsy, eagerly.

"Was she about the height of this girl here, and whereabouts did you see her?" asked Tom.

"Waal, couldn't tell exactly; somewhars between here an' the village, I reckon. Seems to me she did have a veil or suthin'."

"And she was real pale?" cried Gypsy, "and the boy was dreadfully muddy?"

"Couldn't say as to that"—the small boy began to hesitate and look very wise—"don't seem to remember the mud, and on the whole, I ain't partiklar sure 'bout the veil. Oh, come to think on't, it wasn't a gal; it was a deaf old woman, an' there warn't no boy noways."

Well was it for the small boy that, as the carriage rattled on, he took good care to be out of the reach of Tom's whip-lash.

It grew darker and colder, and the red moon rode on silently in the sky. They had come now to the opening of the cross-road, but there were no signs of the children—only the still road and the shadows under the trees.

"Hark! what's that?" said Mr. Breynton, suddenly. He stopped the carriage, and they all listened. A faint, sobbing sound broke the silence. Gypsy leaned over the side of the carriage, peering in among the trees where the shadow was blackest.

"Father, may I get out a minute?"

She sprang over the wheel, ran into the cross-road, into a clump of bushes, pushed them aside, screamed for joy.

"Here they are, here they are—quick, quick! Oh, Winnie Breynton, do just wake up and let me look at you! Oh, Joy, I am so glad!"

And there on the ground, true enough, sat Joy, exhausted and frightened and sobbing, with Winnie sound asleep in her lap.

"I didn't know the way, and Winnie kept telling me wrong, and, oh, I was so tired, and I sat down to rest, and it is so dark, and—and oh, I thought nobody'd ever come!"

And poor Joy sprang into her uncle's arms, and cried as hard as she could cry.

Joy was thoroughly tired and chilled; it seemed that she had had to carry Winnie in her arms a large part of the way, and the child was by no means a light weight. Evidently, Master Winnie had taken matters pretty comfortably throughout, having had, Joy said, the utmost confidence in his own piloting, declaring "it was just the next house, right around the corner, Joy; how stupid in her not to know! he knew all the whole of it just as well as anything," and was none the worse for the adventure. Gypsy tried to wake him up, but he doubled up both fists in his dream, and greeted her with the characteristic reply, "Naughty!" and that was all that was to be had from him. So he was rolled up warmly on the carriage floor; they drove home as fast as Billy would go, and the two children, after a hot supper and a great many kisses, were put snugly to bed.

After Joy was asleep, Mrs. Breynton said she would like to see Gypsy a few moments downstairs.

"Yes'm," said Gypsy, and came slowly down. They sat down in the dining-room alone. Mrs. Breynton drew up her rocking-chair by the fire, and Gypsy took the cricket.

There was a silence. Gypsy had an uncomfortable feeling that her mother was waiting for her to speak first. She kicked off her slipper, and put it on; she rattled the tongs, and pounded the hearth with the poker; she smoothed her hair out of her eyes, and folded up her handkerchief six times; she looked up sideways at her mother; then she began to cough. At last she broke out—

"I suppose you want me to say I'm sorry. Well, I am. But I don't see why I'm to blame, I'm sure."

"I haven't said you were to blame," said her mother, quietly. "You know I have had no time yet to hear what happened this afternoon, and I thought you would like to tell me."

"Well," said Gypsy, "I'd just as lief;" and Gypsy looked a little, a very little, as if she hadn't just as lief at all. "You see, 'in the first place and commencing,' as Winnie says, Joy wanted to take him. Now, she doesn't know anything about that child, not a thing, and if she'd taken him to places as much as I have, and had to lug him home screaming all the way, I guess she would have stopped wanting to, pretty quick, and I always take Winnie when I can, you know now, mother; and then Joy wouldn't talk going over, either."

"Whom did she walk with?" interrupted Mrs. Breynton.

"Why, with Winnie, I believe. Of course she might have come on with Sarah and Delia and me if she'd wanted to, but—I don't know——"

"Very well," said Mrs. Breynton, "go on."

"Then, you see, Joy didn't like chestnuts, and couldn't climb, and—oh, Winnie kept losing his shoes, and got stuck in the fence, and you never saw anything so funny! And then Joy couldn't climb, and she just hung there swinging; and now, mother, I couldn't help laughing to save me, it was so exactly like a great pendulum with hoops on. Well, Joy was mad 'cause we laughed and all, and so she said she'd go home. Then—let me see—oh, it was after that, Winnie tumbled into the ditch, splash in! with his feet up in the air, and I thought I should go off to see him."

"But what about Joy?"

"Oh, well, Joy took Winnie—he was so funny and muddy, you don't know—'cause she brought him, you know, and so they came home, and I thought she knew the way as much as could be, and I guess that's all."

"Well," said her mother, after a pause, "what do you think about it?"

"About what?"

"Do you think you have done just right, Gypsy?"

"I don't see why not," said Gypsy, uneasily. "It was perfectly fair Joy should take Winnie, and of course I wasn't bound to give up my nutting party and come home, just for her."

"I'm not speaking of what is fair , Gypsy. Strictly speaking, Joy had her rights , and you had yours, and the arrangement might have been called fair enough. But what do you think honestly, Gypsy—were you a little selfish?"

Gypsy opened her eyes wide. Honestly she might have said she didn't know. She was by nature a generous child, and the charge of selfishness was seldom brought against her. Plenty of faults she had, but they were faults of quick temper and carelessness. Of deliberate selfishness it had scarcely ever occurred to her that anybody could think her capable. So she echoed—

"Selfish!" in simple surprise.

"Just look at it," said her mother, gently; "Joy was your visitor, a stranger, feeling awkward and unhappy, most probably, with the girls whom you knew so well, and not knowing anything about the matters which you talked over. You might, might you not, have by a little effort made her soon feel at home and happy? Instead of that, you went off with the girls, and let her fall behind, with nobody but Winnie to talk to."

Gypsy's face turned to a sudden crimson.

"Then, a nutting party was a new thing to Joy, and with the care of Winnie and all, it is no wonder she did not find it very pleasant, and she had never climbed a tree in her life. This was her first Saturday afternoon in Yorkbury, and she was, no doubt, feeling lonely and homesick, and it made her none the happier to be laughed at for not doing something she had not the slightest idea how to do. Was it quite generous to let her start off alone, over a strange road, with the care of a crying——"

"And muddy," put in Gypsy, with twinkling eyes, "from head to foot, black as a shoe."

"And muddy child?" finished Mrs. Breynton, smiling in spite of herself.

"But Joy wanted to take him, and I told her so. It was her own bargain."

"I know that. But we are not speaking of bargains, Gypsy; we are speaking of what is kind and generous. Now, how does it strike you?"

"It strikes me," said Gypsy, in her honest way, after a moment's pause—"it strikes me that I'm a horrid selfish old thing, and I've lived twelve years and just found it out; there now!"

Just as Gypsy was going to bed she turned around with the lamp in her hand, her great eyes dreaming away in the brownest of brown studies.

"Mother, is it selfish to have upper drawers, and front sides, and things?"

"What are you talking about, Gypsy?"

"Why, don't my upper drawers, and the front side of the bed, and all that, belong to me, and must I give them up to Joy?"

"It is not necessary," said her mother, laughing. But Gypsy fancied there was a slight emphasis on the last word.

Joy was sound asleep, and dreaming that Winnie was a rattlesnake and Gypsy a prairie-dog, when somebody gave her a little pinch and woke her up.

"Oh—why—what's the matter?" said Joy.

"Look here, you might just as well have the upper bureau drawers, you know, and I don't care anything about the front side of the bed. Besides, I wish I hadn't let you come home alone this afternoon."

"Well, you are the funniest!" said Joy.