“He got away from us and is on this boat. That’s what’s about him,” said Priscilla, coming at once to her sister’s aid. “Don’t mind, Dissy; we’ll find him.”
An interested spectator of the scene, a tall, energetic type of woman, now joined the group.
“Let me help you look for him, my dear,” she said briskly, putting a hand on Desiré’s shoulder. “No need to worry; he’s certainly safe.”
“But,” choked the girl, now fully conscious that the boat was moving, “we can’t go on. My big brother is waiting for us in Yarmouth! What—what will he think? What will he do?” She wrung her hands distractedly.
“You could go back on the tug, if the boy’s found before she leaves us,” suggested the officer, coming to the rescue as soon as he fully understood the situation.
“There he is!” shrieked Priscilla, darting to the side of the boat where René was climbing up on a suitcase to look over the railing at the water. Grasping him firmly by the tail of his jacket, she dragged him backward across the salon, and brought him to a violent sitting posture at Desiré’s feet.
Meanwhile the officer had ordered the tug to be signalled, and she now came alongside. No time for anything but hurried thanks to their benefactors as the girls and René were helped over the side and onto the tug. Noisily, fussily, she steamed away from the big boat, over whose rails hung the interested passengers, and headed to Yarmouth.
“What ever made you do such a naughty thing, René?” asked Desiré, who had recovered her outward composure.
“Wanted to see big boat,” replied the child, not at all impressed by the gravity of his offense. Useless to say more now.
“The young feller needs a good whaling,” growled the pilot of the tug, as he brought his boat alongside the wharf.
“There’s Jack!” cried Desiré, in great relief, catching sight of him striding rapidly along the street above the docks. “Jump out, quickly, Prissy! Run up and tell him we’re all right.”
The child sprang to the dock and ran up the incline at top speed, while Desiré lingered to thank the pilot.
“Glad to do it, ma’moiselle. Better keep hold of him hereafter, though.”
“I shall,” she promised, with a reproachful look at René.
The reunited family met in the little park, and sat down on one of the benches to readjust themselves.
“I’m so sorry, dear,” said Desiré, putting her hand in Jack’s. “You must have been frantic.”
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I came back and found that you had all disappeared. An old dock hand who saw me looking around said he’d seen a boy, followed by two girls, go aboard the ‘Yarmouth.’ So, knowing René, I came to a close solution of the mystery. I was just going up to the steamship office to see what could be done when Prissy grabbed me from behind.
“René,” he went on, placing the child directly in front of him so he could look into his eyes, “you have been a very bad boy; and only the fact that we are out here in a public place prevents me from putting you right across my knee, and giving you something to make you remember your naughtiness. There is to be no more running away. Do you understand me?”
The little boy, wiggling slightly as if he already felt the punishment, nodded gravely, impressed by his brother’s stern face and voice.
“What did you find out, Jack?” asked Desiré, when he had released René.
“They told me,” he began, turning toward her, “that Simon lives on a street not so very far from here. I thought if you’re ready, we might walk down there; and perhaps he’d be able to tell us where we could spend the night.”
“Aren’t we going to the hotel?” inquired Priscilla, her face clouding.
“No; we haven’t enough money to stay there,” answered Jack, starting ahead with René.
The little girl pouted, and shed a few quiet tears to which Desiré wisely paid no attention. Slowly they strolled along the main street, pausing to look in the window of a stationer’s where the books and English magazines attracted Desiré’s eye; stopping to gaze admiringly at the jewelry, china, pictures, and souvenirs attractively displayed in another shop.
“Just see the lovely purple stones!” cried Priscilla, who had recovered her good humor.
“Those are amethysts,” explained Jack. “They come from Cape Blomidon,” adding to Desiré, “I heard that another vein split open this year.”
“Isn’t it strange that the intense cold nearly every winter brings more of the beautiful jewels to light?” commented the girl.
“A kind of rough treatment which results in profit and beauty,” mused Jack.
“Yes; and, Jack, maybe it will be like that with us. Things are hard now, but perhaps soon we’ll find—”
“Some am’thysts?” asked René excitedly.
“Perhaps,” replied Jack, giving Desiré one of his rare sweet smiles.
The stores had been left behind now, and on every hand were green tree-shaded lawns enclosed by carefully trimmed hedges of English hawthorne in full bloom. Desiré exclaimed with rapture over their beauty, and the size and style of the houses beyond them. On a little side street they paused before a small cottage, half hidden in vines.
“This must be the place,” decided Jack, opening the white gate which squeaked loudly as if protesting against the entrance of strangers. The sound brought a woman to the door.
“I’m looking for Simon Denard,” began Jack.
“You’ve come to the right place to find him,” she replied, smiling, as she came toward them and put out one hand to pat René’s head. “Simon Denard is my father. I’m Mrs. Chaisson. Come right in.”
In the small living room to which she led them sat old Simon, propped up with pillows in a big chair.
“So here ye are,” was his greeting, as the children dashed across the floor to his side.
“Be careful,” warned Desiré quickly. “You might hurt Simon.”
“Let ’em be! Let ’em be!” protested the old man, beaming upon his visitors. “What’s an extra stab of pain, or two?”
“Father has told me about you people so often that I feel as if I knew you,” Mrs. Chaisson was saying to Jack, after he introduced Desiré and the children; “so I want you to stay here as long as you’re in town; that is, if you haven’t made other plans.”
The expression on her kindly face indicated clearly that she hoped they hadn’t.
“But there are so many of us,” objected the boy.
“It’s perfectly all right, if you don’t mind kind of camping out a bit.”
“That’s what we
