Polly of Lady Gay Cottage Part 28

It roused the boy with a start. He gave a little shamefaced laugh.

"I don't see what made me do it," he apologized.

"Well, we'd better go home as quick as we can get there," decided Polly. "What time do you s'pose it is?"

Neither could tell, but presently a town clock struck ten.

"That isn't so bad as I thought," giggled Polly. "But what will the folks say!"

They hurried along the path, till, suddenly, David halted.

"Did we pa.s.s this big fountain?" he questioned abruptly.

"I--don't remember it," Polly faltered.

"We're on the wrong path," he hastily concluded. "Let's go back!"

They wheeled about, and were soon following a driveway that they were sure led to the park entrance. Yet they trudged on and on, and still the green expanse, dotted with trees, flower-beds, and shrubbery seemed to stretch endlessly before them.

"Seems 's if we ought to get somewhere pretty soon," observed Polly, a plaintive note in her voice.

David replied absently. He was thinking hard. Where was that big stone gateway? He strained his eyes in a vain endeavor to discern it in the distance.

"What if we couldn't find our way out, and they had to come and look for us!" pondered Polly. "Only they wouldn't know where to look!"

"Oh, we're not lost!" exclaimed David, in what he tried to make a fearless tone; but Polly, as well as he himself, knew it to be a fib, spoken only to hold their fast-going courage.

"Let's stop a minute, and see if we can't tell where we are," proposed Polly, just as if that were not what they had been doing, at brief intervals, ever since they had pa.s.sed the unfamiliar fountain.

They had come to no satisfactory conclusion, and were still peering sharply into their surroundings, when Polly spied a figure in the path ahead.

"There's a boy!" she whispered. "We can ask him."

As the lad approached, something in his easy swing seemed familiar.

"It looks like--" began Polly--"why, it is! Oh, Cornelius!" she cried excitedly, as the light showed the unmistakable features of her friend of the convalescent ward. She sprang forward to greet him.

"Holy saints!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cornelius O'Shaughnessy. "However come you kids out here, this time o' night?"

They told their story in breathless s.n.a.t.c.hes, omitting only what had brought them hither.

"Come f'r a walk, did ye!" sniffed Cornelius. "Wal, ye've had it sure!

Now, see here! I've got to go over on North Second Street to git a receipt f'r some cake Cousin Ellen give my mother, or I'll ketch it when the show's out--that's where my mother is now! She says, the last thing, 'Cornelius, mind yer don't forgit to go up after that receipt, f'r I want to make th' cake in th' mornin'!' I says, 'Sure I won't!'--and I never thought of it again till just as I was goin' up to bed! It happened to pop into my head, and if I didn't hustle down those stairs! An' here I be! Now ye just sit down and wait, and I'll go 'long back wid ye."

The boy darted into the shadows and was lost. Polly and David felt more alone than before.

"Queer, we should meet him 'way out here, at this time!" David had lowered his voice, as if fearful of being overheard.

"He came just to find us," purred Polly. "What a nice boy he is!"

"Don't talk so loud!" cautioned David.

"He can't hear. He's too far away."

"Somebody might."

"There isn't anybody," she laughed, yet involuntarily she was obeying David's injunction.

They sat there on the bench what seemed a very long time, still Cornelius did not appear.

"Let's walk along a little way and meet him," proposed Polly.

The deserted park seemed vastly more lonely than an empty street.

Polly kept up a soft chatter. David wished silently that Cornelius would come. The shrubbery that bordered the way made weird shadows along the path, and more than once David had to grip his courage in a hurry to keep from halting in the face of some grotesque shade. Queer little p.r.i.c.kles crept up and down his legs. Why didn't Cornelius come!

"You're not afraid?" he whispered, as Polly clutched his arm more tightly in pa.s.sing a clump of dogwoods.

"Oh, no!" she chirped contentedly, the harmless shadows behind them, "not with you!"

The boy's retreating courage came back. He felt himself grown suddenly taller and stronger. He walked forward with a firm, steady step.

"We mustn't go too far, or Cornelius might miss us," warned Polly.

"There he is now!" as the straight little figure swung into sight.

The three had a merry walk home, notwithstanding the distance and the haunting fear in the hearts of two of them that there would be anxiety because of their unexplained absence. Cornelius insisted on accompanying them to within a block of home, and then he stood on the corner and watched them away.

Mrs. Dudley met them at the foot of the steps, both hands outstretched.

"Children! where have you been?"

Polly felt nearer than usual to a real reprimand, and she hurried to explain.

"We didn't mean to be gone so long, but we got lost in Cherry Hill Park--"

"Cherry Hill Park! What in the world started you up there this hot night?"

"Why, we went up on Oregon Avenue, and then thought we'd just go over to the park, and we got tired,--or I did,--and we sat down on a bench and went to sleep--both of us!" Polly giggled at the remembrance.

"Then we couldn't tell which way to go, and Cornelius came along, and he had to do an errand for his mother, and we waited a good while for him--and that's why we didn't come before."

"Well, you have had a time! You'd better run right home, David, for your mother is worried. She supposed you were over here, and came to see what kept you."

"Is Uncle David home?" questioned the boy tentatively.

"I think she said not."

Polly's eyes and David's met in tacit understanding--the secret was Colonel Gresham's, and not to be spoken of. Then the boy whirled towards home.

"Good-night!" called Polly, and to the accompaniment of fleeting footfalls came the answering "Good-night!"