On and on, down one street and up another, Pollyanna trudged. She was thoroughly frightened now. She was hungry, too, and very tired. Her feet ached, and her eyes smarted with the tears she was trying so hard to hold back. Worse yet, it was unmistakably beginning to grow dark.
“Well, anyhow,” she choked to herself, “I’m going to be glad I’m lost, ’cause it’ll be so nice when I get found. I CAN be glad for that!”
It was at a noisy corner where two broader streets crossed that Pollyanna finally came to a dismayed stop. This time the tears quite overflowed, so that, lacking a handkerchief, she had to use the backs of both hands to wipe them away.
“Hullo, kid, why the weeps[36]?” queried a cheery voice. “What’s up?”
With a relieved little cry Pollyanna turned to confront a small boy carrying a bundle of newspapers under his arm.
“Oh, I’m so glad to see you!” she exclaimed. “I’ve so wanted to see some one who didn’t talk Dutch!”
The small boy grinned.
“Dutch nothin’!” he scoffed. “You mean Dago[37], I bet ye.”
Pollyanna gave a slight frown.
“Well, anyway, it – it wasn’t English,” she said doubtfully; “and they couldn’t answer my questions. But maybe you can. Do you know where Mrs. Carew lives?”
“Nix! You can search me.”
“Wha-at?” queried Pollyanna, still more doubtfully.
The boy grinned again.
“I say not in mine. I guess I ain’t acquainted with the lady.”
“But isn’t there anybody anywhere that is?” implored Pollyanna. “You see, I just went out for a walk and I got lost. I’ve been ever and ever so far, but I can’t find the house at all; and it’s supper – I mean dinner time and getting dark. I want to get back. I MUST get back.”
“Gee! Well, I should worry!” sympathized the boy.
“Yes, and I’m afraid Mrs. Carew’ll worry, too,” sighed Pollyanna.
“Gorry! if you ain’t the limit[38],” chuckled the youth, unexpectedly. “But, say, listen! Don’t ye know the name of the street ye want?”
“No – only that it’s some kind of an avenue,” desponded Pollyanna.
“A avenOO, is it? Sure, now, some class to that! We’re doin’ fine. What’s the number of the house? Can ye tell me that? Just scratch your head!”
“Scratch – my – head?” Pollyanna frowned questioningly, and raised a tentative hand to her hair.
The boy eyed her with disdain.
“Aw, come off yer perch[39]! Ye ain’t so dippy as all that. I say, don’t ye know the number of the house ye want?”
“N-no, except there’s a seven in it,” returned Pollyanna, with a faintly hopeful air.
“Won’t ye listen ter that?” gibed the scornful youth. “There’s a seven in it – an’ she expects me ter know it when I see it!”
“Oh, I should know the house, if I could only see it,” declared Pollyanna, eagerly; “and I think I’d know the street, too, on account of the lovely long yard running right up and down through the middle of it.”
This time it was the boy who gave a puzzled frown.
“YARD?” he queried, “in the middle of a street?”
“Yes – trees and grass, you know, with a walk in the middle of it, and seats, and —” But the boy interrupted her with a whoop of delight.
“Gee whiz! Commonwealth Avenue, sure as yer livin’! Wouldn’t that get yer goat, now?”
“Oh, do you know – do you, really?” besought Pollyanna. “That sounded like it – only I don’t know what you meant about the goat part. There aren’t any goats there. I don’t think they’d allow —”
“Goats nothin’!” scoffed the boy. “You bet yer sweet life I know where ’tis! Don’t I tote Sir James up there to the Garden ’most ev’ry day? An’ I’ll take YOU, too. Jest ye hang out here till I get on ter my job again, an’ sell out my stock. Then we’ll make tracks for that ’ere Avenue ’fore ye can say Jack Robinson[40].”
“You mean you’ll take me – home?” appealed Pollyanna, still plainly not quite understanding.
“Sure! It’s a cinch[41] – if you know the house.”
“Oh, yes, I know the house,” replied the literal Pollyanna, anxiously, “but I don’t know whether it’s a – a cinch, or not. If it isn’t, can’t you —”
But the boy only threw her another disdainful glance and darted off into the thick of the crowd. A moment later Pollyanna heard his strident call of “Paper, paper! Herald, Globe, – paper, sir?”
With a sigh of relief Pollyanna stepped back into a doorway and waited. She was tired, but she was happy. In spite of sundry puzzling aspects of the case, she yet trusted the boy, and she had perfect confidence that he could take her home.
“He’s nice, and I like him,” she said to herself, following with her eyes the boy’s alert, darting figure. “But he does talk funny. His words SOUND English, but some of them don’t seem to make any sense with the rest of what he says. But then, I’m glad he found me, anyway,” she finished with a contented little sigh.
It was not long before the boy returned, his hands empty.
“Come on, kid. All aboard,” he called cheerily. “Now we’ll hit the trail for the Avenue. If I was the real thing, now, I’d tote ye home in style in a buzz-wagon; but seein’ as how I hain’t got the dough, we’ll have ter hoof it[42].”
It was, for the most part, a silent walk. Pollyanna, for once in her life, was too tired to talk, even of the Ladies’ Aiders; and the boy was intent on picking out the shortest way to his goal. When the Public Garden was reached, Pollyanna did exclaim joyfully:
“Oh, now I’m ’most there! I remember this place. I had a perfectly lovely time here this afternoon. It’s only a little bit of a ways home now.”
“That’s the stuff! Now we’re gettin’ there,” crowed the boy. “What’d I tell ye? We’ll just cut through here to the Avenue, an’ then it’ll be up ter you ter find the house.”
“Oh, I can find the house,” exulted Pollyanna, with all the confidence of one who has reached familiar ground.
It was quite dark when Pollyanna led the way up the broad Carew steps. The boy’s ring at the bell was very quickly answered, and Pollyanna found herself confronted by not only Mary, but by Mrs. Carew, Bridget, and Jennie as well. All four of the women were white-faced and anxious-eyed.
“Child, child, where HAVE you been?” demanded Mrs. Carew, hurrying forward.
“Why, I – I just went to walk,” began Pollyanna, “and I got lost, and this boy —”
“Where did you find her?” cut in Mrs. Carew, turning imperiously to Pollyanna’s escort, who was, at the moment, gazing in frank admiration at the wonders about him in the brilliantly-lighted hall.
“Where did you find her, boy?” she repeated sharply.
For a brief moment the boy met her gaze unflinchingly; then something very like a twinkle