And now the girls were all back at Three Towers again in search of further education, likewise, they hoped, much fun and adventure.
“Don’t come any farther,” Billie said to Laura and Vi, as she stretched herself out at full length on the ice and reached out to grasp one of the children in the water. “Lie down on the thick ice, both of you, and hold on to me just as hard as you can. When I say pull – pull!”
Obediently Laura and Vi flopped down on the ice, each grasping one of Billie’s feet and holding on stoutly.
“I’d like to see you get away from us now,” said Laura.
Leaning over, Billie grasped the nearest child under the arms and tugged with all her strength.
“Pull!” she gasped to the girls, “I’m slipping.”
The girls pulled and dragged her, child and all, out on the more solid ice. They set the child on his poor shivering little feet and then went back for the next one. A moment more and all three of the little things were standing huddled together on the ice, shivering and crying miserably.
“I wanna do home!” wailed the little boy. “I wanna do home.”
CHAPTER III – POLLY HADDON
“Where do you live?” asked Billie, turning to the oldest of the three children. “Tell us quick, so we can get you there.”
“We live wiv our muvver, Polly Haddon,” said the little one quaintly, pointing with a shivering finger out across the lake. “We runned away dis mornin’.”
“So we see,” said Laura, adding, as she turned to Billie: “I think I know where they live. Teddy pointed the house out to me one day when we were taking a hike through the woods. Said he and the boys had stopped there one day and had bought some waffles and real maple syrup from Mrs. Haddon. Of course, I don’t know whether it is the same one or not – ”
“Well, come on – we’ll find out,” said Billie, lifting the largest of the three children in her strong arms. “You and Vi can manage the other two kiddies, I guess. You lead the way, Laura, if you know where the house is.”
“But hadn’t we better take our skates off and walk around?” suggested Vi.
“We can make it quicker on skates,” said Billie impatiently, “because we can cut across the lake – ”
“But the ice!” Laura objected. “It may not be solid – ”
“We’ll have to take a chance on that,” Billie returned, adding with an exasperated stamp of her foot, “if you don’t hurry and show us the way, Laura, I’ll do it myself.”
So Laura, knowing that nothing could change Billie’s mind when it was once made up, caught the little boy in her arms and started off across the lake, Billie and Vi following close behind her.
Luckily the children were not heavy, being thin almost to emaciation, or the girls could never have made their goal. As it was, they had to stop several times and set the children down on the ice to rest.
And more than once the treacherous ice cracked under their feet, frightening them horribly. They made it at last, however, and with a sigh of relief set the children on the ground while they fumbled with numbed fingers at their skate straps.
“Is this where you live?” asked Billie of the elder of the two little girls. Billie had undone the last strap buckle and was peering off through the woods in search of some sort of habitation.
“Yes,” answered the little girl through chattering teeth. “Our house is just a little way off, along that path.”
She pointed to a narrow foot path, or rather, to the place where a foot path had once been. For now it was obliterated by snow and was indicated only very faintly by footprints recently made.
Billie, seeing that the other girls were ready, caught up the little girl again, holding her close for warmth and started down the snow-covered path, Laura and Vi following.
The snow was hard, which made the going a little easier, and in a minute or two they came in sight of a shabby cabin set in the heart of a small clearing.
If the place had been a mansion, the girls could not have greeted the sight of it any more joyfully. They stumbled forward recklessly at the imminent risk of dropping the poor little children in the snow.
Before they could reach the cottage the door of it opened and a woman stood on the threshold, hatless and coatless and staring at them anxiously.
When she recognized the children she gave a gesture of relief and backed into the house, motioning to the girls to follow her.
This the girls were not in the least reluctant to do, for they were chilled through, and the warmth of Mrs. Haddon’s kitchen was wonderfully comforting.
They set the children on the floor, and the little ones ran straight to their mother. Polly Haddon dropped to her knees and put her arms around the three of them, cuddling them hungrily.
“My precious little lambs, you frightened mother so!” she said. “She thought you were lost – but you are wet – or you have been!” She rose to her feet and faced the girls while the children clung to her skirts.
“Where did you find my little ones?” she asked abruptly, looking anxiously from one to the other of them.
“We found them up to their waists in icy water,” Billie explained, knowing that no time was to be lost if the children were to be saved from a bad cold. “They fell through the ice on the lake.”
“Fell through the ice!” the woman repeated dumbly, then, seeming suddenly to realize the full seriousness of the situation, she roused herself to action.
With a quick motion she swept the children nearer to the warmth of the coal stove, then started for a door at the opposite end of the room. Then as if she realized that something was due the girls, she paused and looked back at them.
“Draw up chairs close to the fire and warm yourselves,” she directed. “You must be nearly frozen.”
The girls managed to find three rather rickety old chairs, and these they drew as close to the stove as they could without scorching their clothes. They tried to draw the children into their laps, but the children were either too miserable to want to be touched by strangers or they had become a little shy. At any rate, they drew away so sharply that one of them nearly fell on the stove. This frightened them all and they began to cry dismally.
The girls were glad when Mrs. Haddon returned with three shabby but warm little bath robes which she hung close to the stove. Then she undressed the children quickly, rubbed their little bodies till they were in a glow, then slipped them into the snug robes.
And all the time she was doing it she kept up a running fire of conversation with the girls.
“Thank goodness,” she said, “I only missed the children a little while ago. They have always been so good to play close to the house, and I was so busy I didn’t look out as usual. And to think that they ran away and fell into the lake! Well, it’s only one more trouble, that’s all. It’s funny how a person can become used to trouble after a while.”
“But it would have been so much worse,” Billie suggested, gently, “if the kiddies had fallen through into deeper water.”
“Eh?” said Mrs. Haddon, looking up at Billie quickly, then down again. “Yes, I suppose that would have been worse.” Then she added, with a bitterness the girls did not understand: “It isn’t often that the worst doesn’t happen to me.”
Puzzled, the girls looked at each other, then around the bare, specklessly clean little kitchen.
That Mrs. Haddon was very poor, there could be no doubt. The shabbiness of the place, her dress, and the children’s clothes all showed that. But could poverty alone account for the sadness in her voice?
Mrs. Haddon had once been a very pretty woman, and she