Just at this moment Nora opened the door and called me; you should have seen those four jump! and the way Judge hurried what he had in his hand out of sight! But I didn't suspect anything; I didn't dream of what they were up to.

"Jack," said Nora, when I got out in the hall, "Phil has gone out to see to something for me, and I can't send Fee, so I wish you would go round to Dr. Archard's and ask him to call and see nurse as soon as possible.

She won't let me do a thing for her, and yet she's groaning, and says she feels _dreadfully_; she may be very ill, for all I know."

There was such an anxious look on Nora's face that I tried to cheer her up. "Don't worry, Nonie," I said; "you know nurse gets scared awfully easy. If she has a finger-ache, she thinks she's dreadfully ill, and wants the doctor."

"Well, perhaps she'll feel better after she has seen him," Nora said.

"Between Kathie and her I've had a pretty hard morning; I'm doing my very best, but n.o.body seems to think so." She gave her head a proud toss, but I could see there were tears in her eyes. I didn't know what to say, so I just patted her hand, and then got my hat and went for the doctor.

It was a lovely day, and I didn't suppose there was any need for me to hurry back, so I took a walk, and didn't get home for a good while after leaving my message at the doctor's.

Before I had time to ring the bell, Nora opened the front door; she looked very much excited, and asked breathlessly, "Did you meet them?

Have you seen them?"

Of course I didn't understand. "Meet whom? What d'you mean?" I asked in surprise.

"The children. Then they are _lost!_" answered Nora, and she sat down on a chair in the hall and burst out crying. Then out came Phil and Felix from the drawing-room, where they had been with Nora, and I heard the whole story.

It seems that soon after I left for the doctor's, Judge went down stairs and asked cook for some gingerbread,--"enough for the four of us," he said,--and some time later, when Nora went up to the schoolroom to see what the children were doing, not one of them was there, nor could they be found in the house. Nora flew to tell Felix and Phil, and in the hurried search from garret to cellar which everybody made,--except nurse, she wasn't told anything of it,--it was found that the children's every-day hats were gone.

Of course, as soon as I heard that, I remembered the whispering under the schoolroom table, and I felt at once that the children had run away.

I just wished I had told Nora about it, or that I had come right back from the doctor's; I might have prevented their going.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NORA TORE IT OPEN."]

While I was telling Nora and the boys what I thought about the matter, Hannah came flying into the drawing-room,--she was so excited, she forgot to knock. She held a c.o.c.ked-hat note in her hand,--Kathie is great on c.o.c.ked-hat notes and paper lamplighters. "Oh, Miss Nora! it's meself that's just found this on the flure mostly under the big Sarytogy thrunk,--the one that's open," she cried, almost out of breath from her rush down the steps.

"Nora" was scrawled in Kathie's handwriting on the outside of the note.

In an instant Nora tore it open, but she pa.s.sed it right over to Phil.

"Read it,--I can't," she said in a shaky voice. So he did.

The note was very short and the spelling was funny, though we didn't think of that until afterward; this is what was in it: "We are not goging to stay here to be treted like this so we have run away we are goging to Nannie becaws she tretes us good. I have token my new parrasole for the sun goodby we have Jugs bank with us Kathie."

Poor Nonie! that just broke her all up! She cried and cried! "I _didn't_ ill-treat them; I was trying to do my _very_ best for them. If I _was_ cross, I didn't mean it,--and they _had_ to be made to mind," she kept saying between her sobs. "And now they've gone off in this dreadful way!

Oh, _suppose_ some tramp should get hold of them--or they should be run over or hurt--or--we--should--_never_ see them again! Oh--_oh!_ what shall I say to papa and Nannie!"

"Oh, shure, Miss Nora, you don't mane to say the darlints is ralely _lost_!" exclaimed Hannah, and with that _she_ began to bawl; Phil had to send her right down stairs, and warn her against letting nurse know.

Then we tried to comfort Nora. "You've done your level best, and n.o.body can do any more than that," Phil said, drawing Nora to him, and pressing her face down hard on his shoulder, while he patted her cheek. "Cheer up, Nonie, old girl, they are no more lost than I am; you see if we don't walk them home in no time,--young rascals! they ought to be well punished for giving us such a scare."

"Yes, we'll probably find them in the park, regaling themselves with the good things that 'Jugs bank' has afforded," remarked Fee, trying to speak cheerfully. "We're going right out to look for them. Come, Jack, get on your hat and go along too; I'm ready." As he spoke, he stuck his hat on and stood up.

"Shall we go separately?" I asked, dropping Nora's hand,--I'd been patting it.

"Indeed we _will_ go separately," answered Phil, emphatically. "Here, Nora, sit down; and we will have a plan, and stick to it, too," he added, "or we'll all three be sure to think of the same scheme, travel over the same ground, and arrive at the same conclusion. There's been rather an epidemic of that sort of thing in this family lately,--the '_three_ souls with but a single thought, three wills that work as one,'

business. Yes, sir, we'll have a plan. Fee, you go to the little parks, and some way down the avenue; Jack, you go up the avenue, and through as many of the cross streets as you can get in; and I'll go east and west, across the _tracks_"--as the word slipped out he gave a quick look at Nora; we knew he was thinking of those dreadful cable cars: but fortunately she didn't seem to have heard.

So off we started, after making Nora promise she'd stay at home and wait for us to bring her news.

We separated at our corner; but I'd only gone a block or two when I thought of something that sent me flying back to the house. I slipped in the bas.e.m.e.nt way, and up the back stairs to the nursery, where I hunted out an old glove of Kathie's; then down I went to the yard and loosed Major, and he and I started out as fast as we could go.

Once or twice in the country, when the children had strayed too far on the beach, by showing Major something they'd worn, and telling him to "Find 'em!" he had led Phil and me right to them. I had remembered this, and now as we walked up the avenue I kept showing Kathie's glove to the dear old doggie, and telling him, "Find Kathie, Major, find her! find her, old boy!" And it did seem as if he understood--Major's an awfully bright dog--by the way he wagged his tail and went with his nose to the ground smelling the pavement.

He went pretty straight for nearly a block up the avenue, then he got bothered by the people pa.s.sing up and down so continually, and he began to whine and run aimlessly about; I could hardly make him go on; and when I took him in the cross streets, he wasn't any good at all. I felt real discouraged. But just as soon as we turned into Twenty-third Street, I could see that he'd struck something; for though he did a lot of zigzagging over the pavement, he went ahead all the time: I tell you, I was right at his tail at every turn. When we came opposite to where Madison Avenue begins, if Major didn't cross over and strike off into the park. Presently he gave a short, quick bark, and tore down a path. I fairly _flew_ after him; up one path and down another we went like mad, until we came to the fountain, and there, in the shade of a big tree, just as cool and unconcerned as you please, were the runaways!

Kathie was seated off on one end of the bench, with her new parasol open over her head, putting on all sorts of airs, while she gave orders to Paul and Madel, who were setting out some forlorn-looking fruit on the other end of the bench; Alan was walking backward and forward dragging his express waggon after him.

"Why, it's _Major_!" cried Alan, as the old doggie bounced on him and licked his face.

"And _Jack_! hullo!" sang out Paul, turning round and seeing me.

"Oh, _lawks_!" exclaimed Madel,--she'd caught that expression from nurse, who always says it when she's frightened or excited,--and with that she scrambled up on the bench and threw her arms round Kathie's neck with such force that she knocked the parasol out of her hand, and it slipped down over their heads and hid their faces.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND THERE, JUST AS COOL AND UNCONCERNED AS YOU PLEASE, WERE THE RUNAWAYS."]

Of course I was thankful to see them, _very_ thankful; but at the same time I must say I was provoked, too, at the cool way in which they were taking things, when we'd been so frightened about them. "You mean little animals!" I said, giving Paul's shoulder a shake. "There's poor Nonie at home crying her eyes out about you, and here're you all _enjoying_ yourselves! What d'you mean by behaving like this?"

Instead of being sorry, if they didn't get saucy right away,--at least the boys did. Judge jerked himself away from me. "If anybody's going to punish us, _I'm not_ coming home," he drawled, planting his feet wide apart on the asphalt pavement, and looking me square in the eye. "Nor me!" chimed in Alan, defiantly.

The parasol was lifted a little, and Madel peeped out. "Will Nora make us go to bed right away?" she asked anxiously; "before we get any dinner?"

Up went the parasol altogether, and Kathie slipped to the ground. "Oh, Jack, is everybody awfully mad? and what'll they do to us?" she said, and she looked just ready to begin weeping again. "'Cause if they are, we'd rather stay here; we've got things to eat--"

"Yes, we've got lots of things," broke in Alan; "see," pointing to the miserable-looking fruit on the end of the bench, "all that! Judge bought it; we couldn't get the bank open, but the fruitman took it,--he said he didn't mind,--an' let us have all these things for it; wasn't he kind? We're going to have a party."

Well, for a few minutes I didn't know what to do,--I mean how to get them to go home without a fuss. I could see that Paul and Alan were just ready for mischief; if they started to run in different directions, I couldn't catch both, and there were those dangerous cable cars not very far away. Suppose the boys should rush across Broadway and get run over!

I suppose I could have called a policeman, and got him to take us all home, but I knew that'd make a terrible fuss; Kathie and Madel would howl,--they're awfully afraid of "p'leecemen," as Alan calls them, and I really don't care very much for them myself. At last I got desperate.

"See here, children," I said, "I've been sent to find you if I could, and to bring you home, and I've _got_ to do it, you know. If you'd seen how worried everybody was, and how poor Nonie cried for fear some tramp had got hold of you--"

"I just guess not!" broke in Judge, defiantly; but all the same he glanced quickly over his shoulder, and drew a little nearer to me.

"--or for fear you'd get hurt, or have no place to sleep in, you'd want to go straight home this minute. You know this park's all very well for the day-time; but when night comes, and it gets dark, what'll you do?

The policemen may turn you out, and where will you all go _then_?

Nannie is miles and _miles_ away from here by the cars, and how're children like you ever going to get to her without money or anything?

And even if it were so you could get to her, what do you suppose Nannie'd say when she found you had all _run away from home_?"

I said all this very seriously,--I tell you I felt serious,--and the minute I stopped speaking Madel slipped from the bench and slid her little hand into mine. "_I'm_ going home," she declared.

"Perhaps I will, too, if Nora won't punish us," said Kathie, undecidedly.

"I don't know if she'll punish you or not," I said; "but even if she should, isn't that better than staying here all the time, and having no dinner,--cook's made a lovely shortcake for dessert,--and no beds to sleep in, and never coming home at all again?"

Kathie caught hold of my hand. "I'm ready," she said; "let's go now."

"Coming, boys?" I asked carelessly.

"Oh, I s'pose we'll _have_ to," answered Paul, sulkily, kicking the leg of the bench; "and there's my money all gone!"

I was wild to get them home, but I had to wait as patiently as I could while the boys piled the horrid old fruit into the express wagon--they wouldn't have left it for anything--and harnessed Major to it with pieces of twine they had in their pockets; then we started.