Apron-Strings Part 38

Now, Ikey stretched out weary hand. "Oh, please," he begged, "_don't_ make me lie no more!"

"Ha-a-a-a?" cried Balcome.

"_What?_" exclaimed Mrs. Balcome.

Ikey nodded, shaking that injured finger. "To lie ain't Christian," he reminded slyly.

Balcome guffawed. But Mrs. Balcome, visited with a dire thought, looked suddenly concerned.

"Tell me:"--she came heaving toward Ikey once more; "did my daughter stay last night with her father?" And as Ikey stared, not understanding the system of family telephoning, "Did--my--daughter--stay--last--night--with--her--father?"

"But vy ask me?" complained Ikey. "Let him lie! Let him!" And he started churchward.

"Wait!" Balcome was bellowing now. "Where is my daughter?"

"Didn't she stay with her father?" repeated Mrs. Balcome.

"Didn't she stay with her mother?" cried Balcome.

Ikey did not need to reply. For one question had answered the other.

With an "Oh! Oh!" of apprehension, Mrs. Balcome sank, a dead weight, to a bench.

"Where is she, I say? Where is she?" Now Balcome had the unfortunate Ikey by a faded blue sleeve. He shook him so that all the curls on his head bobbed madly. "Open your mouth!"

"I don't know!" denied Ikey, desperately.

"Good Heavens!" Balcome let him go, and paced the gra.s.s, clutching off his hat and pounding at a knee with it.

"Oh, what has happened! What has happened!" Mrs. Balcome rocked in her misery. "Oh, and we had words last night--bitter words! Oh!"

At this juncture, out from between the drawing-room curtains Henry appeared, balancing himself on his middle, and handed down still another package. Ikey ran to receive it, and as if to silence the mourning with which the Close resounded, hastened to thrust the package into the lap of the unhappy lady on the bench.

The result was to increase Mrs. Balcome's sorrow. "Oh, my poor Hattie!" she wept. "My poor child!" She pulled at the cord about the bundle, and Balcome halted behind her to look on. "Here is another gift for her wedding! Oh, how pitiful! How pitiful! A present from someone who loves her! Who thought the dear child would be happy!

Something sweet and dainty"--the wrapping paper was torn off by now--"to brighten her new home! Something----"

A cover came off. And there, full in Mrs. Balcome's sight, lay a good-sized, and very rosy Kewpie--blessed with little raiment but many charms.

"Baa-a-a-ah!"--a gesture of disgust, and the Kewpie was cast upon the lawn.

Wallace came hurrying from the house. He looked more bent than usual, and if possible more pale. His clothes indicated that he had slept in them.

Balcome charged toward him. "Where's my daughter?" he asked, with a head-to-foot look, much as if he suspicioned the younger man with having Hattie concealed somewhere about him.

"Wallace!" Mrs. Balcome held out stout arms to the newcomer.

Wallace went to her. "I tried and tried to telephone her," he answered. "And they told me they don't know where she is. So I've come.--Oh, is it all right? What does she say? I want to see her!"

"She's gone!" informed Balcome, his voice hollow.

"She's gone! She's gone!" echoed Mrs. Balcome. She shook the stone bench.

"_Gone?_" Wallace clapped a hand to his forehead.

"She's wandered away!" sobbed Mrs. Balcome. "Half-crazed with it all!

Heart-broken! Heart-broken!"

With a m.u.f.fled growl, Balcome once more fell upon Ikey, who had been watching and listening from a discreet distance. "Where is Miss Milo, I say!" he demanded as he swooped.

But Ikey's determination did not fail him, though his teeth chattered.

"I--I--d-d-don't know!" he protested for the tenth time.

"Oh, terrible! Terrible!"--this in a fresh burst from Mrs. Balcome.

"Oh, what did I say what I did for!"

"Don't cry! Don't cry!" comforted Wallace. "We'll hunt for her.

Police, and detectives----"

A crash of piano notes interrupted from the drawing-room. Then through open door and windows floated the first bars of "Comin' Thro' the Rye"--with an accompaniment in rag-time. As one the group in the Close turned toward the house.

"Hattie?" exclaimed Mrs. Balcome.

"Hattie!" faltered Wallace.

"Hattie!"--it was a crisp ba.s.s summons from Hattie's father.

Hattie put her head out at the door. "Good-morning, mother!" she called cheerily. "Good-morning, dad! Good-morning,--Wallace."

"Where did you spend last night?" asked Mrs. Balcome, rising. Anger took the place of grief, for Hattie was wearing an adorable house frock culled from her trousseau--a frock combined of rose voile and French gingham. And such a selection on this particular morning----

Hattie sauntered to the sun-dial. "Last night?" She pointed to that upper guest-room window.

Her mother was shocked. "You don't mean to tell me that you slept _here_!"

"When the telephone wasn't ringing,"--whereat Ikey grinned.

"You slept here _unchaperoned_?"

"Oh, Sue was home."

"Oh, what's the matter with you, Hattie? You're not like other girls!"

"Well, have I been raised like other girls?"

At this, Mrs. Balcome became fully roused. "You'll pack your things and come right out of that house!" she cried. "Do you hear me?"

"Yes, mother.--Ikey dear, find Mr. Farvel and tell him his breakfast is ready." Then with a proprietary air, "And Miss Balcome says he must eat it while it's hot."

Wallace straightened, his face suddenly flus.h.i.+ng.