The Corner House Girls Growing Up Part 22

"Oh, my dear!" gasped Mrs. Kranz, her fat face wrinkling with emotion, and dabbing at her eyes while she patted Ruth's shoulder. "If I had only knowed vat dem kinder had in der kopfs yedt, oh, my dear! I vould haf made dem go right avay straight home."

"De leetla padrona allow, I go right away queek and looka for theem--yes? Maria and my Marouche watcha da stan'--sella da fruit. Yes?"

cried Joe Maroni to the oldest Corner House girl.

"If we only--any of us--knew where to search!" Ruth cried.

Neale and Luke got out of the automobile, leaving the girls surrounded by the gossipy, though kindly, women of the neighborhood and the curious children. Neither of the young fellows had any well defined idea as to how to proceed; but they were not inclined to waste any more time merely canva.s.sing the misfortune of Dot and Sammy's disappearance.

Neale, being better acquainted with the dwellers in this neighborhood, seized a half-grown youth on the edge of the crowd and put several very pertinent questions to him.

Was there any place right around there that the children might have fallen into--like a cellar, or an excavation! Any place into which they could have wandered and be unable to get out of, or to make their situation known? Had there been an accident of any kind near this vicinity during the day?

The answers extracted from this street youth, who would, Neale was sure, know of anything odd happening around this section of Milton, were negative.

"Say, it's been deader'n a doornail around here for a week," confessed the Meadow Street youth. "Even Dugan's goat hasn't been on the rampage. No, sir. I ain't seen an automobile goin' faster than a toad funeral all day. Say, the fastest things we got around here is the ca.n.a.lboats--believe me!"

"Funny how we always come around to that ca.n.a.l--or the barges on it--in this inquiry," murmured Luke to Neale O'Neil.

The two had started down the street, but Neale halted in his walk and stared at the young collegian.

"Funny!" he exclaimed suddenly. "No, there isn't anything funny in it at all. The ca.n.a.l. Ca.n.a.lboats. My goodness, Mr. Shepard, there must be something in it!"

"Water," growled Luke. "And very muddy water at that. I will not believe that the children fell in and were drowned!"

"No!" cried Neale just as vigorously. Then he grinned. "Sammy Pinkney's best friends say he will never be drowned, although some of them intimate that there is hemp growing for him. No, Sammy and Dot would not fall into the ca.n.a.l. But, crickey, Shepard! they might have fallen into a ca.n.a.lboat."

"What do you mean? Have been carried off in one? Kidnapped--actually kidnapped?"

"Sh! No. Perhaps not. But you never can tell what will happen to kids like them--nor what they will do. Whew! there's an idea. Sammy was always threatening to run away and be a pirate."

"The funny kid!" laughed Luke. "But Dot did not desire such a romantic career, I am sure."

"Did you ever find out yet what was in a girl's head?" asked Neale, with an a.s.sumption of worldly wisdom very funny in one of his age and experience. "You don't know what the smallest of them have in their noddles. Maybe if Sammy expressed an intention of being a pirate she wasn't going to be left behind."

He laughed. But he had hit the fact very nearly. And it seemed reasonable to Luke the more he thought of it.

"But on a ca.n.a.lboat?" he said, with lingering doubts.

"Well, it floats on the water, and it's a boat," urged Neale. "Put yourself in the kid's place. If the idea struck you suddenly to be a pirate where would you look around here for a pirate ship and water to sail it!"

"Great Peter!" murmured Luke. "The boundless ca.n.a.l!"

"Quite so," rejoined Neale O'Neil, his conviction growing. "Now, on that basis, let's ask about the barges that have gone east out from Milton to-day."

"Why not both ways?" queried Luke, quickly.

"Because most of the ca.n.a.lboats coming west go no farther than the Milton docks; and if the kids had got a ride on one into town, they would long since have been home. But it is a long journey to the other end of the ca.n.a.l. Why, it's fifteen or eighteen miles to Durginville."

"How are you going to find out about these boats?"

Neale had a well defined idea by this time. He sent Luke back to the car to pacify the girls as best he could, but without taking time to explain to the collegian his intention in full. Then the boy got to work.

Within half an hour he interviewed the blacksmith and half a dozen other people who lived or worked in sight of the ca.n.a.l. He discovered that, although two barges had gone along to the Milton Lock at the river side since before noon, only the old _Nancy Hanks_ had gone in the other direction.

He came back to the car and the waiting party in some eagerness.

"Oh, Neale! have you found them!" cried Agnes.

"Of course he hasn't. Do not be so impatient, Aggie," admonished Ruth.

"I have an idea," proclaimed Neale, as he stepped into the car and turned the starting switch.

"A trace of the children?" Cecile asked.

"It's worth looking into," said Neale with much more confidence than he really felt. "We'll run up to the first lock and see if the lock-keeper noticed anybody save the captain and his little girl on that barge that went through this afternoon. Maybe Dot got friendly with the girl and she and Sammy went along for a ride on the _Nancy Hanks_. They say this Bill Quigg that owns that ca.n.a.lboat isn't any brighter than the law allows, and he might not think of the kids' folks being scared."

"Oh! it doesn't seem reasonable," Ruth said, shaking her head.

But she did not forbid Neale to make the journey to the lock. The road was good all the way to Durginville and it was a highway the Corner House girls had not traveled in their automobile. At another time they would have all enjoyed the trip immensely in the cool of the evening.

And Neale drove just as fast as the law allowed--if not a little faster.

Agnes loved to ride fast in the auto; but this was one occasion when she was too worried to enjoy the motion. As they rushed on over the road, and through the pleasant countryside, they were all rather silent. Every pa.s.sing minute added to the burden of anxiety upon the minds of the two sisters and Neale; nor were the visitors lacking in sympathy.

After all, little folk like Sammy and Dot are in great danger when out in the world alone, away from the shelter of home. So many, many accidents may happen.

Therefore it was a very serious party indeed that finally stopped at b.u.mstead Lock to ask if the lock-keeper or his wife, who lived in a tiny cottage and cultivated a small plot of ground near by, had noticed any pa.s.sengers upon Cap'n Bill Quigg's barge.

"On the _Nancy Hanks_?" repeated the lock-keeper. "I should say 'no'!

young lady," shaking his head emphatically at Ruth's question. "Why, who ever would sail as a pa.s.senger on that old ramshackle thing? I reckon it'll fall to pieces some day soon and block traffic on the ca.n.a.l."

Ruth, disappointed, would not have persevered. But Luke Shepard asked:

"Is there much traffic on the ca.n.a.l?"

"Well, sometimes there is and sometimes there ain't. But I see all that goes through here, you may believe."

"How many ca.n.a.lboats went toward Durginville to-day?" the collegian inquired.

"Why--lemme see," drawled the lock-keeper thoughtfully, as though there was so much traffic that it was a trouble to remember all the boats.

"Why, I cal'late about _one_. Yes, sir, one. That was the _Nancy Hanks_."

"She ought to be a fast boat at that," muttered Neale O'Neil. "_Nancy Hanks_ was some horse."

"So that was the only one?" Luke persevered. "And you spoke with Cap'n Quigg, did you?"

"With Bill Quigg?" snapped the lock-keeper, with some asperity. "I guess not! I ain't wastin' my time with the likes of him."

"Oh-ho," said Luke, while his friends looked interested. "You don't approve of the owner of the _Nancy Hanks_?"