The farmer hummed and hawed. "I did see some children," he said at last.

"It was a good piece back, nearly an hour ago, I reckon. They was making for the pond?"

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mell. She thanked the farmer, and ran on faster than ever.

"Have you pa.s.sed any children on this road?" she demanded of a boy with a wheelbarrow, who was the next person she met.

"Boys or girls?"

"One boy and four girls."

"Do they belong to you?"

"Yes, they're my brothers and sisters," said Mell. "Where did you see them?"

"Haven't seen 'em," replied the boy. He grinned as he spoke, seized his barrow, and wheeled rapidly away.

Mell's tears broke forth afresh. What a horrid boy!

The pond was very near now. It was a large pond. There were hills on one side of it; on the other the sh.o.r.e was low, and covered with thick bushes. In and out among these bushes went Mell, hunting for her lost flock. It was green and shady. Flowers grew here and there; bright berries hung on the boughs above her head; birds sang; a saucy squirrel ran to the end of a branch, and chippered to her as she pa.s.sed. But Mell saw none of these things. She was too anxious and unhappy to enjoy what on any other day would have been a great pleasure; and she pa.s.sed the flowers, the berries, and the chattering squirrel unheeded by.

No signs of the children appeared, till at last, in a marshy place, a small shoe was seen sticking in the mud. Belinda's shoe! Mell knew it in a minute.

She picked up the shoe, wiped the mud from it with a tuft of dried gra.s.s, and, carrying it in her hand, went forward. She was on the track now, and here and there prints of small feet in the earth guided her.

She called "Tommy! Isaphine! Belinda!" but no answer came. They were either hidden cleverly, or else they had wandered a longer distance than seemed possible in so short a time.

Suddenly Mell gave a shriek and a jump. There on the path before her lay a snake, or what looked like one. It did not move. Mell grew bold and went nearer. Alas! alas! it was not a snake. It was a pigtail of braided hair,--Isaphine's hair: the red color was unmistakable. She seized it. A smell of kerosene met her nose. Oh that Tommy!

With the pigtail coiled inside of the lost shoe, Mell ran on. She was pa.s.sing a thicket of sa.s.safras bushes, when a sound of crying met her ears. Instantly she stopped, and, parting the bushes with her hands, peered in. There they were, sitting in a little circle close together,--Arabella and Gabella Sarah fast asleep, with their heads in Belinda's lap; Isaphine crying; Tommy sitting a little apart, an evil smile on his face, in his hand a pair of scissors!

"You naughty, naughty, naughty boy," screamed Mell, flinging herself upon him.

With a howl of terror, Tommy started up and prepared to flee. Mell caught and held him tight. Something flew from his lap and fell to the ground. Alas! alas! three more pigtails. Mell looked at the children.

Each little head was cropped close. What _would_ mother say?

"He cut off my hair," sobbed Isaphine.

"So did he cut mine," whined Belinda. "He took those na.s.sy scissors you told him not to take, and he cut off all our hairs. Boo-hoo! boo-hoo!

Tommy's a notty boy, he is."

"I'm going to tell Ma when she comes home, see if I don't," added Isaphine.

"I ain't a bad boy," cried Tommy. "Stop a-shaking of me, Mell Davis. We was playing they was sheep. I was a-shearing of em."

"O Tommy, Tommy!" cried poor Mell, hot, angry, and dismayed, "how could you do such a thing?"

"They was sheep," retorted Tommy sulkily.

"Boo-hoo! boo-hoo!" blubbered Belinda. "I don't like my hair to be cut off. It makes my head feel all cold."

"He didn't play nice a bit," sobbed Isaphine. "He's always notty to us."

"I'll cut off your head," declared Tommy, threatening with the scissors.

Mell seized the scissors, and captured them, Tommy kicking and struggling meantime. Then she waked up the babies, tied on Belinda's shoe, collected the unhappy pigtails, and said they must all go home.

Home! The very idea made her sick with fright.

I don't suppose such a deplorable little procession was ever seen before. Isaphine and Belinda went first; then the little ones, very cross after their nap; and, lastly, Mell, holding Tommy's arm, and driving the poor little shorn sheep before her with the handle of the parasol, which she used as a shepherdess uses her crook. They were all tired and hungry. The babies cried. The sun was very hot. The road seemed miles long. Every now and then Mell had to let them sit down to rest. It was nearly four o'clock when they reached home; and, long before that, Mell was so weary and discouraged that it seemed as if she should like to lie down and die.

They got home at last. Mell's hand was on the garden gate, when suddenly a sight so terrible met her eyes that she stood rooted to the spot, unable to move an inch further. There in the doorway was Mrs. Davis. Her face was white with anger as she looked at the children. Mell felt the coral beads burn about her throat. She dropped the parasol as if her arm was broken, the guilty tails hung from her hand, and she wished with all her heart that the earth could open and swallow her up.

It was a full moment before anybody spoke. Then "What does this mean?"

asked Mrs. Davis, in an awful voice.

Mell could not answer. But the children broke out in full chorus of lament.

"Tommy was so bad to us." "He lost us in the woods." "He stole the scissors, and they were dirty scissors." "Mell went away and left us all alone."

"Yes," cried Mrs. Davis, her wrath rising with each word, "I know very well what you were up to, miss. All my things upset. As soon as I found out that I had forgotten my key, I knew very well--" her voice died away into the silence of horror. She had just caught sight of Belinda's cropped head.

"Tommy did it. He cut off all our hairs," blubbered Belinda.

Mell shut her eyes tight. She was too frightened to move. She felt herself clutched, dragged in-doors, upstairs, and her ears boxed, all in a moment. Mrs. Davis pushed her violently forward, a door banged, a key turned.

"There you stay for a week, and on bread and water," cried a voice through the keyhole; and Mell, opening her eyes, found herself in the dark and alone. She knew very well where she was,--in the closet under the attic stairs; a place she dreaded, because she had once seen a mouse there, and Mell was particularly afraid of mice.

"Oh, don't shut me up here! Please don't; please let me out, please,"

she shrieked. But Mrs. Davis had gone downstairs, and n.o.body replied.

"They'll come and eat me up as soon as it grows dark," thought Mell; and this idea so terrified her that she began to beat on the door with her hands, and scream at the top of her voice. No one came. And after a while she grew so weary that she could scream no longer; so she curled herself up on the floor of the closet and went to sleep.

When she woke the closet was darker than ever. Mell felt weak and ill for want of food. Her head ached; her bones ached from lying on the hard floor; she was feverish and very miserable.

"It's dark; she's going to leave me here all night," sobbed Mell. "Oh!

won't somebody come and let me out?" Now _would_ have been a chance to play that she was a princess shut up in a dark dungeon! But Mell didn't feel like playing. She was a real little girl shut up in a closet, and it wasn't nice at all. There was no "make believe" left in her just then.

Suddenly a fine scratching sound began in the wall close to her head.

"The mouse, the mouse," thought Mell, and she gave a shriek so loud that it would have scared away a whole army of mice. The shriek sounded all over the house. It woke the children in their beds, and rang in the ears of Mrs. Davis, who was sitting down to supper in the kitchen with somebody just arrived,--a big, brown, rough-bearded somebody, who smelt of salt-water; Mell's father, in short, returned from sea.

"What's that?" asked Captain Davis, putting down his cup.

Mrs. Davis was frightened. In the excitement of her husband's sudden return she had quite forgotten poor Mell in her closet.

"Some of the children," she answered, trying to speak carelessly. "I'll run up."

Another terrible shriek. Captain Davis seized a candle, and hurried upstairs after his wife.

He was just in time to see her unlock the closet door, and poor Mell tumble out, tear-stained, white, frightened almost out of her wits. She clutched her step-mother's dress with both hands.

"Oh, don't make me go in there again!" she pleaded. "I will be good.