CHAPTER XIII.
THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING.
"THERE! You are ready at last!" said Mrs. Sherman, as she finishedbuttoning Lloyd's gloves, and fastened the jewelled clasp of her longparty cloak. She had come over to help the Little Colonel dress for theButterfly Luncheon at Anna Moore's.
Feeling very elegant in her unusual party array, Lloyd surveyed herselfin the mirror with a satisfied air, and sat down beside Allison to waitfor the carriage that Mrs. Moore had promised to send for them. Mrs.Walton was tying Kitty's sash, and in the next room Elise was buzzingaround like an excited little bee.
"Hold still! Do now!" they heard Milly say, impatiently. "I'll never getthe tangles brushed out of your curls, and the others will go off andleave you, and you'll have to miss the party."
Presently there was a long protesting wail from Elise. "Oh, Milly, whatdid you put that ribbon on my hair for? It isn't pink enough to matchmy stockings."
"There's scarcely any difference at all in the shades," answered Milly."Sure it would take a microscope to tell, even if they were side byside, and your head is too far away from your heels for anybody tonotice."
"Oh, but it won't do at all!" cried Elise, breaking away from her to runinto the next room. "See, mamma, they don't match." In her eagernessElise leaned over, bending herself like a little acrobat, till the pinkbow on her hair was on a level with the pink silk stockings.
"There's barely a shade difference," laughed Mrs. Walton. "Thedifference is so slight that nobody will notice it unless you expect todouble up occasionally like a jack-knife and call attention to it."
"Of course I don't expect to do that," said Elise, with such a funnylittle air of injured dignity that her mother caught her up with a hastykiss. "You're a dear little peacock, even if you do think too much ofyour fine feathers. But you can't stop to make a fuss about your ribbonsnow. It would be making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Run back to Millyfor your hat. I hear the carriage stopping out in front."
"What a lot of things I'll have to write about in my next letter to thegirls," thought Lloyd, as they rolled along in the carriage a fewminutes later. "Joyce and Betty will like to hear about the general'shome and all the interesting things in it, and Eugenia will enjoy thispart of my visit most."
THE BUTTERFLY CARNIVAL.]
It was with a view to impressing Eugenia with the elegance of herfriends, that Lloyd noticed every detail of the beautiful luncheon. Sheintended that Eugenia should hear about it all. Gay butterflies, solifelike that one could not believe that human hands had made them, werepoised everywhere, on the flowers, the candle-shades, the curtains. Themenu cards were decorated with them, the fine hand-painted china boreswarms of them around their dainty rims, and even the ices were mouldedto represent them. The little hostess herself, fluttering around amongher guests as gracefully as if she too were a winged creature, wore agauzy dress of palest blue, embroidered in butterflies, and there werebutterflies caught here and there in her golden curls.
The Little Colonel could scarcely eat for admiring her. She felt veryelegant and grown up to be the guest at such an entertainment, and asshe took her place at the table between Malcolm and Rob, she wishedwith all her heart that Eugenia could peep in and see her.
It was time to start to the Butterfly Carnival almost immediately whenluncheon was over, and again Lloyd felt very elegant and grown uprolling along in the carriage to the matinee. Mrs. Moore ushered theparty into the box she had taken for Anna and her little friends, andmore than one person in the audience turned to ask his neighbour, "Whoare those lovely children? Did you ever see such handsome boys? Theyhave such charming manners. It is like a scene from some oldcourt-play." The Little Colonel, sitting beside Anna, with the twolittle knights leaning forward to talk to her, to pick up her fan, oradjust her lorgnette, was all unconscious that any one in the audiencewas watching her admiringly, but she wished again that Eugenia could seeher.
When the curtain went up the scene on the stage was so absorbing thatshe forgot Eugenia. She forgot where she was, for the play carried herbodily into fairy-land. The queen of the fairies was there with herstar-tipped wand and all her spangled court, and Lloyd looked andlistened with breathless attention, while the naughty Puck played prankson all the butterflies, and, finally catching them at play in amoonlighted forest, took all the gauzy-winged creatures captive. It wasas entrancing as looking into a living fairy tale, and when at last thequeen released the prisoners with a wave of her star-tipped wand, and tothe soft notes of the violins, the butterflies danced off the stage,Lloyd drew a long breath and came down to earth with a sigh. She couldhave listened gladly for hours more.
But the curtain was down, the people were rising all over the house, andKeith was holding her party cloak for her to slip into. Mrs. Mooreturned to Allison.
"Elise is wild to see behind the scenes," she said. "I am going to keepher with me a little while. Your cousin Malcolm says that he and Keithcan take you home in their carriage with Lloyd and Kitty. So I'll sendAnna and Rob home in mine and wait here until it comes back. Tell yourmother I'll take good care of Elise and bring her home as soon as Iattend to my little proteges behind the scene."
Many of the children who had taken part in the performance were from thefree kindergarten, and Elise, holding fast to Mrs. Moore's hand, watchedthe transformation behind the scenes, from gauzy wings to gingham gowns,with wondering eyes.
"It is like when Cinderella lost her glass slipper," she said. "Theclock struck twelve, and her silks turned to rags."
All the glitter and glory of fairy-land had disappeared with thefootlights. In the wintry light of the late afternoon, some of the faceswere pitifully thin and wan.
"Here are three little butterflies that must go back home and be grubsagain," said Mrs. Moore, as she beckoned to the children whom she hadpromised to take home in her carriage. Elise looked at them, wonderingif it could be possible that they were the same children, who, fifteenminutes before, had looked so radiantly beautiful in their spangledcostumes on the stage. They were shy little things who could scarcelyfind words to answer Mrs. Moore's questions, but they seemed to enjoythe drive in the warm closed carriage, behind the team of prancing bays.
Elise chatted on gaily, telling Mrs. Moore how much she had enjoyed thecarnival, how she had admired the fairy queen, and how she longed for areal live fairy. She had looked for them often in the morning-gloriesand the lily-bells. If she could find one maybe it would tell her whereto look for Dot.
Presently they turned into a side street among unfamiliartenement-houses, and paused at an alley entrance.
"I am going to the top of the stairs with the children," said Mrs.Moore, preparing to step out of the carriage. "I want to inquire aboutthe baby, who is sick. I'll be back in a moment, Elise."
As the carriage door closed behind her she spoke to the coachman. "Waithere a moment, Dickson." The man on the box touched his hat and thenturned his fur collar higher around his ears. There was a cold windwhistling through the alley. Elise pressed her face against the glassand looked out into the wintry street. Mrs. Moore's moment stretched outinto five. The baby up-stairs was worse, and she was making a list ofthe many things it needed for its comfort.
There was little of interest to watch from the carriage window. Fewpeople were passing along the narrow pavement, and Elise wonderedimpatiently why Mrs. Moore did not come. Presently, down the street camea ragged child with its arm held up over its eyes, sobbing and snifflingas it shuffled along in a pair of wornout shoes many sizes too large forits little feet.
Elise's heart gave a great thump, and she started forward eagerly.
"Molly's little lost sister!" she exclaimed aloud. "It must be, for shelooks just like the girl in the picture. Oh, I must call her!"
She was fumbling at the knob of the carriage door, but before she couldget it open, the child turned and started up the dirty alley, stillsobbing aloud, with her arm over her face.
"Oh, I must call her back," thought Elise. "Everyb
ody will be so glad ifshe is found. I mustn't let her get away."
It took all her strength to turn the knob, but with another desperatewrench she got the door open, and climbed out to the pavement. Thecoachman, half asleep in his great fur collar and heavy lap-robes, didnot hear the tap of the little pink boots, as she ran up the dark alleybetween the high, rickety buildings, with their bad smells and dirtysewers.
"Oh, she is going so fast!" panted Elise. "I'll never catch up withher!" The pretty pink boots were wet and snowy now, the silk stockingssplashed with muddy water. Her big velvet hat was tipped over one eyeand her curls were blowing in tangles over the wide collar of herfur-trimmed cloak. But forgetting all about her fine feathers, she ranon, around corners, into strange passages, across unfamiliar streets,following the flutter of a tattered gown. All of a sudden she paused,looking around in bewilderment. The child she was following haddisappeared.
With a bitter sense of disappointment swelling in her little heart, sheturned to go back to the carriage, and then stood still in bewilderment.She could not tell which way she had come. She was lost herself! For afew minutes the little pink boots trudged bravely on, then the tearsbegan to gather in her big black eyes.
"They'll feel so bad at home," she thought, "when they hunt and hunt andcan't find me anywhere. Oh, what if I'd stay lost, and get to look allragged and dirty like Dot, and just have to stand in a corner and cry.If there was any nice stores along here, I'd go in and ask the man tosend me home, but these places look so dreadful I'm afraid."
She was in a disreputable part of the town, where second-hand clothingstores and pawn-shops were crowded in between saloons and cheaprestaurants, and she dared not venture into any of them to ask for help.Little as she was, she felt that she was safer on the streets thaninside those crowded, dirty quarters, where half-drunken negroes andcoarse, brawling white men quarrelled and swore in loud tones.
"It's the saloons that brought all the trouble to Molly and Dot,"thought Elise, shrinking away from a group of noisy loafers, as theystraggled out of one. "They made their father mean and their mother dieand their grandmother go crazy and them lose each other. They're worsethan wild beasts, and I'm afraid of 'em. Maybe if I walk far enough I'llcome to a nice policeman, but I'm so tired now." Her lip quivered as shewhispered the words. "Oh, it seems as if I'd drop! And I'm so cold I amnearly frozen."
As she walked on, across her way an electric arch suddenly shot its coldwhite light into the street. Then another and another appeared, and asfar as she could see in any direction the streets were brilliantlyilluminated.
"Oh, it's night!" she sobbed. "I'll freeze to death before morning ifsomebody doesn't come and find me."
Still she dragged on, growing more tired and frightened at every step,until she could walk no longer. At the end of a long block she sat downon a doorstep, and huddled up in one corner out of the wind. A dismalpicture came to her mind of the little match-seller in Hans Andersen'sfairy tales. The little match-seller who had frozen to death onChristmas eve, on the threshold of somebody's happy home.
"She had a box of matches to warm herself with," sobbed Elise. "Ihaven't even that. Oh, it's awful to be lost!"
With the tears trickling down her face she pictured to herself the griefof the family in case they should never find her.
"Mamma will stand in the door and look out into the dark and call andcall, but her little Elise will never answer. And Allison and Kitty willfeel so bad that they won't want to play. They'll divide my thingsbetween them to remember me by, and for a long time it'll make them crywhenever they see my dolls and books, or my place at the table, or mylittle wicker chair in the library, that I'll never sit in any more.Ranald won't cry, 'cause he's a captain and he's brave. But he'll bejust as sorry. Oh, I wish Ranald wasn't out in the country! He couldfind me if he was at home."
It was growing colder and colder on the doorstep. The child's teethchattered and her lips were blue. Still she sat there, until anevil-looking man in the next house slouched out on to the street with alean spotted dog at his heels. Suddenly, for no reason that Elise coulddiscover, for she did not know that he was half drunk, he turned andkicked the poor beast, cursing it violently. It shrank away, yelpingwith pain. Seeing that the man was coming toward her, Elise sprang up interror, and with one frightened glance over her shoulder, darted aroundthe corner. Once out of his sight, she stopped running, but fear kepther moving, and she walked wearily on and on. Every step carried herfarther away from home.
Through unwashed windows she could see the yellow lamplight streamingover dingy rooms. Most of the sights were unattractive, but in onehouse, cleaner than the rest, she saw a crowd of clamouring childrenseated around a supper-table, all reaching their spoons and platestoward a big steaming platter in the middle. It reminded her that shewas hungry herself, and she lingered a moment, looking wistfully in atthe cheerful scene. Then on she started again. Once she stumbled andfell in the slush of a snowy crossing, but scrambled bravely up again,walking on and on.
Meanwhile Allison, Kitty, and the Little Colonel, who had gone ahead inthe carriage with the boys, had stopped at Klein's for a box of candy,and at a book store for a dissected game they had been discussing at theluncheon. When they reached Mrs. Walton's, Malcolm sent the carriagehome, and both the boys went into the house with the girls.
"Tell mamma we'll come up-stairs in a few minutes and tell her all aboutthe carnival," said Allison to the maid who opened the door.
The five children went into the library with their candy and game, andMrs. Walton, busy with many letters, did not notice how Allison's fewminutes lengthened out, until it grew so dark that she had to lay downher pen. As she did so, a carriage drove rapidly up to the house, Mrs.Moore hurried up the steps, and there was a hasty dialogue at the doorbetween her and Allison.
Mrs. Walton did not hear the frightened cry, "Oh, mamma! Elise is lost!"that went up from Allison. And impetuous Kitty, hearing no answer, andfeeling that she must summon help in some way, began beating madly onthe bells of Luzon, as if she were trying to call out the whole firedepartment.
As the clangour startled her, Mrs. Walton's first thought was that thehouse must be on fire, and she hurried out to the head of the stairs andlooked over the bannister. Kitty was still beating on the bells with anumbrella that she had snatched from the rack.
"Stop, Kitty!" she called. "Tell me what is the matter?"
"Elise is lost!" repeated Allison, and Mrs. Walton, with a white face,hurried down to hear Mrs. Moore's explanation.
She had been detained some time in the tenement-house, listening to thetale of woe that the sick baby's mother poured out to her; but she hadfelt no uneasiness about Elise, knowing that the foot-stove in thecarriage would keep her warm and comfortable. When she came down, to herutter amazement the carriage door stood open, and the child was gone.
The sleepy coachman, who roused himself from his cold doze when he heardher coming, was as surprised as she, and declared he had not heard thecarriage door open or the child slip out. He had no idea what could havebecome of her. They made inquiries of people all along the block, butnobody had seen a child answering to the description of Elise. Then Mrs.Moore thought that the child must have grown tired of waiting, and forsome reason had started to walk home. She had driven out to the housewith the hope that she might find her there, or might overtake her onthe way.
Mrs. Walton acted quickly. "Telephone to your father, Malcolm," shecried, "and to the police station. Oh, my poor baby, out in the coldstreets with night coming on. I must look for her without losing aminute."
She started up the stairs to call Milly to help her dress for thesearch. "Get my furs," she called, "and my heaviest coat. It will be acold night." But Malcolm stopped her.
"Don't go, Aunt Mary," he cried. "Papa is on his way here now, and weboys will go in your place. The policemen are being notified all overthe city, and it will do more good for you to stay here ready to answerany questions that may come."
"I'll wait unt
il Mr. MacIntyre comes," said Mrs. Moore, "so that I cantake him straight back to that tenement district if he thinks best togo."
While they were still standing, an anxious little group in the hall, Mr.MacIntyre came in, and after a hurried consultation he and Mrs. Mooredrove in one direction, and the boys started in another.
None of them like to remember the three hours that followed. The newsspread like wild-fire, and the telephone bell rang constantly withfriendly messages. Each time they hoped that some one of the searchingparty was calling them up, but each time they were disappointed. Atintervals one of the girls stole to the front door to look out into thenight and listen. Every voice made them start, every footstep. Everyroll of carriage wheels along the avenue made them hold their breath insuspense until it had passed.
Presently, Kitty, leaving her mother at the telephone, and Allison andLloyd on the stairs, strolled down to the kitchen, where Milly and thecook were talking about Charlie Ross and all the children they had everheard of who had mysteriously disappeared from home.
"An' it's just the loikes av her they'd be afther taking," said thecook, wiping her eyes. "She was that pretty wid her long currls, an'eyes shparklin' loike black dimonts, an' her swate little mouth wid itssmile fit for a cherub. I moind the very last toime I saw her. Only thisafthernoon she coom down here to show me her foine clothes she waswearin' to the parrty. There's no doubt in me moind but that somebody'sstolen her on account av them same illigent clothes. Mebbe they thinkthere'll be a big reward offered. Bless the two little pink shoes avher! It'll be a sorry day for this house if they niver coom walking intoit again."
Kitty stole out of the kitchen cold with this new horror, and went backto whisper it to Allison and Lloyd, as they sat on the stairs ready tospring forward at the first sound of coming footsteps.
"Now if it had been Allison who was lost," thought Mrs. Walton, "shecould have found her way home without any difficulty. She is such asensible, womanly child, always to be trusted for doing the right thingin the right place. Kitty might not act so wisely, but she would bangahead and come out all right in the end. She is the kind one mightexpect to see come home in almost any style, from a coal cart to atriumphal car. But my baby Elise is so little and so timid, my heartaches for her. She will be so sorely frightened."
Dinner was put on the table and carried out again. Nobody could eat, andas the moments dragged by the girls still sat on the stairs, and theanxious mother sprang to the telephone at every tinkle of the bell,praying for a hopeful message from the police-station.
Elise, stumbling on down strange streets, exhausted, hungry, and cold,stopped on a street corner and looked around her. She had strayed downamong the warehouses now, and the little feet, numb with cold, were tootired to go much farther. Down here few people were passing. A bigtobacco warehouse, looming up tall and dark above her, made her feel sotiny and lost, that the last bit of her courage ebbed away, and shebegan to sob aloud.
Out of the shadow just ahead a man was coming toward her. So tall andbroad-shouldered he looked, that he seemed a giant to her terrifiedeyes. She put her little gloved hands over her eyes to shut out thesight, and crouched close against the wall, her baby heart flutteringlike a frightened bird's.
On he came, with slow, heavy tread, his footsteps ringing through thesilent street with a strange metallic echo. As he passed out from theblack shadow of the warehouse, into the light of the street-crossing,Elise peeped between her fingers again, and then smiled through hertears. It was a big, burly policeman.
The next instant she was running toward him, calling, "Oh, MisterPoliceman, I'm lost! _Please_ take me home!"
It was a safe haven she had run into. The policeman had just come fromhome to go on his beat, and in a little cottage not many blocks awaywere three children who were still in his thoughts. They had followedhim to the door to swarm over him and kiss him, and had called after himdown the snowy street, "Good night, daddy!" The childish voices werestill ringing in his ears.
As tenderly as if she had been one of his own, he lifted Elise in hisstrong, fatherly arms, wiped her tear-stained face, and began toquestion her. She told him her name, but in her confusion could notremember the name of the street where she lived.
It was the work of only a moment to carry her into a drug-store aroundthe corner, ring up headquarters, and report his discovery, and it wasonly a few moments after that until they were on an electric car,homeward bound.
Elise was not the first lost child the big, tender-hearted policeman hadtaken home, but he had never had such a royal welcome as the one thatawaited him in the hall when the joyful family met him.
He glanced around him curiously, seeing on every side the relics ofvictorious battle-fields, the grim weapons of warfare that stood as mutewitnesses of a brave soldier's life. Beyond in the library he caught aglimpse of the portrait, the flag, and the sword, and then suddenlyrealised in whose presence he stood.
"Don't mention it, madam," he said, awkwardly, as the grateful mothertried to express her thanks. "Don't you know that this is about theproudest moment of my life? To know that it was _his_ little one Ifound, and brought back with her arms around my neck! I read everythingthere was about him in the papers (he nodded toward the portrait), and Ialways did say he was exactly my idea of a hero. But I never thoughtthe day would come when I'd stand in his house and see all the things hetouched and looked at."
"That's the way everybody seems to feel about the general," thought theLittle Colonel, glancing from the blue-coated policeman to the portrait."It's grand to be a hero."
Elise was too tired and sleepy to talk about her adventures that night,and asked to be put to bed as soon as she had had the bowl of oystersoup that was being kept hot for her. When the cook brought it in,loudly blessing all the saints in the calendar that the child had beenfound, all the family remembered that they were hungry and the longdelayed dinner was brought on again.
Elise fell asleep at the table before she finished the soup, but sheopened her drowsy eyes as they were carrying her away to bed to say,"You all won't feel very bad, will you, if I give you just a teentyweenty Christmas present this year? 'Cause I want to save most of mymoney to buy something nice for that big policeman that brought me home.Being found is the very best thing in all the world, and I would havebeen lost yet, if it hadn't been for him."