Nine Little Goslings Part 12

Twice he almost seized her brown wings, but she slipped through his hands. Had the hen been silent she would easily have escaped him, but she cackled as she flew, and that guided him along. His shoe came off, next the hammer flew out of his hand, but he did not stop for either.

Running, plunging, diving, on he went, the frightened hen just before, till at last a root tripped him up and he fell forward on his face. The hen vanished into the thicket. Her voice died away in distance. By the time Archie had picked himself up there was not even the rustling of a leaf to show which way she had gone.

He rose from the ground disconsolate. His nose bled from the fall, and there was a b.u.mp on his forehead, which ached painfully. A strong desire to cry came over him. But, like a brave fellow, he would not give way to it, and sat down under a tree to rest and decide what was to be done next.

"I'll go back again to my house," was his decision. But where _was_ the house? He ran this way, that way; the paths all looked alike. The house had vanished like the hen. Archie had not the least idea which way he ought to turn to find it.

One big tear did force its way to his eyes when this fact became evident. House and hen, it was hard to lose both at once. The hammer, too, was gone. Only the spade remained, and, armed with this, Archie, like a true hero, started to find a good place and build another house.

Surely nowhere, save in the histories of the great Boston and Chicago fires, is record to be found of parallel pluck and determination!

House-building was not half so easy in this part of the wood where he then was, for the bushes were thick and stood closely together. Their branches hung so low, that, small as Archie was, he had to bend forward and walk almost double to avoid having his eyes scratched by them. At last, in the middle of a circle of junipers, he found a tolerably free s.p.a.ce which he thought would do. The ground, however, was set thick with sharp uncomfortable stones, and the first thing needed was to get rid of them.

So for an hour, with fingers and spade, Archie dug and delved among the stones. It was hard work enough, but at last he cleared a place somewhat larger than his small body, which he carpeted with soft mosses brought from another part of the wood. This done, he lay down flat on his back, and looked dreamily up at the pretty green roof made by the juniper boughs overhead. "I dess I'll take a nappy now," he murmured, and in five minutes was sleeping as soundly as a dormouse. Two striped squirrels, which may or may not have been the same which he had seen in the early morning, came out on a bough not a yard from his head, chattered, winked, put their paws to their noses and made disrespectful remarks to each other about the motionless figure. Birds flew and sang, bees hummed, the wind went to and fro in the branches like the notes of a low song. But Archie heard none of these things. The hen herself might have come back, cackled her best, and flapped her wings in his very face without arousing him, so deep was his slumber.

Meantime at home, two miles away, there was great commotion over the disappearance of Master Archie. Marianne had lingered quite a long time at the back gate. The milkman was a widower, looking out for a wife, and Marianne, as she said, could skim cream with anybody; so it was only natural that they should have a great deal to say to each other, and that measuring the milk at that particular gate should be a slow business. This morning their talk was so interesting that twenty minutes at least went by before Marianne, with very rosy cheeks and very bright eyes, came back, pail in hand, along the garden walk. As she took up the broom to finish her sweeping, she heard a great commotion overhead, steps running about, voices exclaiming; but her mind was full of the milkman, and she paid no attention, till Louisa came flying downstairs, half-dressed, and crying,--

"Sake's alive, Marianne, where's Master Archie?"

"How should I know? Not down here, anyway," was Marianne's reply.

"But he _must_ be down here," persisted Louisa. "He's gone out of the nursery, and so are his clothes. Whatever's taken him I can't imagine.

I've searched the closets, and looked under the beds, and up in the attic, and I took Mr. Gray his hot water, and he isn't there. His spade's gone too, and his ap-- Oh, mercy! there's his story-book now,"

and she pounced on "Robinson Crusoe," where it lay on the table. "He's been down here certain sure, for that book was on his bed when he went to sleep last night. Don't stand there, Marianne, but come and help me find him."

Into the parlor, the dining-room, the pantry, ran the maids, calling "Archie! Archie!" at the tops of their voices. But Archie, who as we know was a good mile away by that time, did not hear them. They searched the kitchen, the cellar, the wood-shed, the store-closet. Marianne even lifted the lid of the great copper boiler and peeped in to make sure that he was not there! Louisa ran wildly about the garden, looking behind currant bushes and raspberry vines, and parting the tall feathers of the asparagus lest Archie should have chosen to hide among them. She tapped the great green watermelons with her fingers as she pa.s.sed,--perhaps she fancied that Archie might be stowed away inside of one. All was in vain. Archie was not behind the currant bushes, not even in the melon patch. Louisa began to sob and cry, Marianne, never backward, joined her with a true Irish howl; and it was in this condition that Archie's Papa found things when he came downstairs to breakfast.

Then ensued a fresh confusion.

"Where did you say the book was lying, Louisa?" said Mr. Gray, trying to make out the meaning of her sobbing explanation.

"Just here, sir, on the hall table. Oh, the darling child, whatever has come to him?"

"Oh, wurra! wurra!" chimed in Marianne. "He been and got took away by wicked people, perhaps. Well niver get him back, niver!"

"The hall table? Then he must have pa.s.sed out this way. Surely you must have seen him or heard him open the door, Marianne?"

"Is it I see him, sir? I'd niver forget it if I had. Oh, the pretty face of him! Wurra! wurra!"

"But, now I think of it, the child couldn't have opened the door for himself," went on Papa, growing impatient. "Did you leave it standing open at all, Marianne?"

"Only for a wee moment while I fetched in the milk," faltered Marianne, growing rosy-red as she reflected on the length of the "moment" which she had pa.s.sed at the gate with the milkman.

"That must have been the time, then," said Mr. Gray. "Probably the little fellow has set off by himself for a walk. I'll go after and look for him. Don't frighten Mrs. Gray when she comes down, Louisa, but just say that Archie and I are both gone out. Try to look as you usually do."

This, however, was beyond Louisa's powers. Her eyes were as red as a ferret's, and her cheeks the color of purple cherries from crying and excitement of mind. Mrs. Gray saw at once that something was wrong. She began to question, Louisa to cry, and the secret came out in a burst of sobs and tears. "Master Archie--bless his little heart!--has got out of bed and ran away into the woods. The master was gone after him, but he'd niver find him at all at all"--(this was Marianne's addition). "The tramps had him fast by this time, no doubt. They'd niver let him go."

"How could he get away all by himself?" asked poor frightened Mrs. Gray.

"Ah, who knows? Like as not the thaves came into the room and lifted him out of his very bed. They're iverywhere, thim tramps! There's no providing against thim. Oh, howly St. Patrick! who'd have thought it?"

This happy idea of tramps having lodged itself in Marianne's mind, the story grew rapidly. The butcher was informed of it when he came, the fishmonger, and the grocer's boy. By noon all the village had heard the tale, and farmers' wives for ten miles round were shuddering over these horrible facts, that three men in black masks, with knives as long as your arm, had broken into Mr. Gray's house at midnight, gagged the family, stowed the silver and money in pillow-cases, token the little boy from his bed,--that pretty little boy with curly hair, you know, my dear,--and, paying no attention to his screams and cries, had carried him off n.o.body knew where. Poor Mrs. Gray was half dead with grief, of course, and Mr. Gray had gone in pursuit; but law! my dear, he'll never catch 'em, and if he did, what could he do against three men?

"He'd a ought to have taken the constable with him," said old Mrs.

Fidgit, "then perhaps he'd have got him back. I guess the thieves won't keep the boy long though, he's too troublesome! His ma sent him over once on an errand, and I'd as lieve have a wild-cat in the house any day. Mark my word, they'll let him drop pretty soon!"

As the day went on, Louisa began to disbelieve this theory about robbers. It was Marianne's theory for one thing; for another, she recollected that Archie must have taken his apples and gingerbread with him, and his spade. "Is it likely that thieves would stop to pack up things like that?" she asked Marianne, who was highly indignant at the question. The afternoon came, still Mr. Gray had not returned, and there were no tidings of Archie. Mrs. Gray, half ill with anxiety and headache, went to her room to lie down. Marianne was describing the exact appearance of the imaginary robbers to a crony, who stood outside the kitchen window. "Six foot high, ivery bit, and a face as black as chimney sut," Louisa heard her say. "Pshaw," she called out; but sitting still became unbearable; and the motion of her needle in and out of the work made her feel half crazy. She flung down the work,--it was a jacket for Archie,--and, tying on her bonnet, set off by herself in the direction of the woods. Where she was going she did not know,--somewhere, anywhere, to search for her lost boy!

The blind wood paths puzzled Louisa more than they had puzzled Archie in the morning; for she wanted to keep her way, which he did not. She lost it, however, continually. Her eyes were scratched by boughs and brambles, the tree roots tripped her up, her dress caught in a briar and was torn. "Archie! Archie!" she cried, as she went along. Her voice came back from the forest in strange echoing tones which made her start. At last, after winding and turning for a long time, she found herself again upon the main path, not far from the place where she had entered the wood. She was hot, tired, and breathless; her voice was hoa.r.s.e with crying and calling. "I'll wait here awhile," she thought. "Perhaps the blessed little dear'll come this way; but, whether he does or not, I'm too tired to move another step till I've had some rest." She found a smooth place under an oak, sat down, and leaned her back against the stem.

"Cheep, cheep, chickeree," sang one bird to another. "What a stupid girl that is! I could tell her which way to go. Why, there's the mark of his big foot on the moss close by. Why doesn't she see it and follow? Cheep, cheep."

"Cluck, cluck, whirr, whillahu," sang the other bird. "Human beings are _too_ stupid."

Poor stupid Louisa, her eyes blurred with tears, did not heed the birds'

songs or understand those plain directions for finding Archie which they were so ready to give. The tree trunk felt comfortable against her back.

The air came cool and spicy from the wood depths to steal the smart from her hot face. The rustle of the leaves was pleasant in her ear. So the faithful maid waited.

Mr. Gray meantime had tracked Archie for a little way by the traces of his small feet on the dewy gra.s.s. Then the marks became too confused to help him longer; he lost the track, and, after a long and weary walk, found himself on the far side of the wood, near a little village. There he hired a wagon, and drove home; resolving to rouse the neighbors, and give the wood a thorough search, even should it keep them out all night.

While he was bargaining for his wagon in the distant village, Archie, in the midst of his nest of moss, was waking up. He had slept three hours, and so soundly that, at first arousing, he could not in the least remember where he was. He rubbed his eyes, and stared about him wonderingly. "Why, I'm out in the woods!" he said in a surprised voice.

Gradually he recollected how he had built the house, chased a hen, and lost his hammer. This last accident troubled him a little. "Papa said I mustn't touch that big hammer ever," he thought to himself, "'cause I'd be sure to spoil it. But I'll tell him it isn't spoiled, and he can pick it up and put it back into the drawer; then he won't mind."

One of the striped squirrels came down from a bough overhead, and stopped just in front of the place where Archie sat. Archie looked at him; he looked at Archie. The squirrel put its paws together and rubbed its nose. It chippered a minute, twinkled its bead-like eyes, then, with a final flick of its tail, it was off, and up the tree again like a flash. Archie looked after it delighted.

"What a pretty bunny!" he said out loud.

"Now I'll go home," was his next remark, getting suddenly up from the ground.

The cause of this resolution was a little gnawing sensation which had begun within him and was getting stronger every moment. In other words, he was hungry. Gingerbread and apples do not satisfy little boys as roast beef does. Archie's stomach was quite empty, and began to cry with an unmistakable voice, "I want my dinner, I want my dinner. Give me my dinner quick, or I shall do something desperate." Everybody in the world has to listen when voices like these begin to sound inside of them. All at once home seemed the most attractive spot in the world to Archie.

Visions of Mamma and bread and milk and a great plate full of something hot arose before his eyes, and an immense longing for these delights took possession of him. So he shouldered his spade and set forth, not having the least notion--poor little soul!--as to which side home lay, but believing, with the confidence of childhood, that now he wanted to go that way, the way was sure to be easily found. Refreshed by his long sleep, he marched st.u.r.dily on, taking any path which struck his eye first.

There is a pretty picture--I wonder if any of you have ever seen it?--in which a little child is seen walking across a narrow plank which bridges a deep chasm, while behind flies a tall, beautiful angel, with a hand on either side the child, guiding it along. The child does not see the angel, and walks fearlessly; but the heavenly hands are there, and the little one is safe. It may be that just such a good angel flew behind our little Archie that afternoon to guide him through the mazes of the wood. Certain it is that, without knowing it, he turned, or something turned him, in the direction of home. It was far for such small feet to go, and he made the distance farther by straying, now to left and now to right; but, after each of these strayings, the unseen hands brought him back again to the right path and led him on. He did not stop to play now, for the hungry voices grew louder each minute, and he was in a hurry to get home. Speculations as to whether dinner would be all eaten up crossed his mind. "But I dess not," he said confidently, "'cause it isn't very long since morning." It was really four in the afternoon, but Archie's long nap had cheated the time, and he had no idea that it was so late.

The path grew wider, and was hedged with barberries and wild roses. The lovely pink of the roses pleased Archie's eye. He stopped and tugged at a great branch till it broke, then he laid it across his shoulder to carry to Mamma. Suddenly, as he tramped along, a gasp and exclamation was heard, and a tall figure rose up from under a tree and caught him in its arms. It was Louisa, who had fallen half asleep at her post, and had been roused by the sound of the well-known little feet as they went by.

"Master Archie, dear," she cried, sobbing, "how could you run away and scare us so?"

"Why, it's Loo--isa," said Archie wonderingly. "Did you come out here to build a house too, Loo--isa?"

"Where _have_ you been?" clamored Louisa, holding him tight in her arms.

"Oh, out there," explained Archie, waving his hand toward the woods generally.

"How could you slip away and frighten Nursey so, and poor Mamma and Papa? Papa's been all the day hunting you. And where are you going now?"

"Home! Stop a squeezing of me, Loo--isa. I don't like to be squeezed.

Has the dinner-bell runged yet? I want my dinner."

"Dinner! Why it's most evening, Master Archie. And n.o.body could eat, because we was so frightened at your being lost."