“Anne, Dora is lost!”
“Dora! Lost!” Anne looked at Davy, who was swinging on the yard gate, and detected merriment in his eyes. “Davy, do you know where she is?”
“No, I don’t,” said Davy stoutly. “I haven’t seen her since dinner time, cross my heart.”
“I’ve been away ever since one o’clock,” said Marilla. “Thomas Lynde took sick all of a sudden and Rachel sent up for me to go at once. When I left here Dora was playing with her doll in the kitchen and Davy was making mud pies behind the barn. I only got home half an hour ago … and no Dora to be seen. Davy declares he never saw her since I left.”
“Neither I did,” avowed Davy solemnly.
“She must be somewhere around,” said Anne. “She would never wander far away alone … you know how timid she is. Perhaps she has fallen asleep in one of the rooms.”
Marilla shook her head.
“I’ve hunted the whole house through. But she may be in some of the buildings.”
A thorough search followed. Every corner of house, yard, and outbuildings was ransacked by those two distracted people. Anne roved the orchards and the Haunted Wood, calling Dora’s name. Marilla took a candle and explored the cellar. Davy accompanied each of them in turn, and was fertile in thinking of places where Dora could possibly be. Finally they met again in the yard.
“It’s a most mysterious thing,” groaned Marilla.
“Where can she be?” said Anne miserably
“Maybe she’s tumbled into the well,” suggested Davy cheerfully.
Anne and Marilla looked fearfully into each other’s eyes. The thought had been with them both through their entire search but neither had dared to put it into words.
“She … she might have,” whispered Marilla.
Anne, feeling faint and sick, went to the wellbox and peered over. The bucket sat on the shelf inside. Far down below was a tiny glimmer of still water. The Cuthbert well was the deepest in Avonlea. If Dora… but Anne could not face the idea. She shuddered and turned away.
“Run across for Mr. Harrison,” said Marilla, wringing her hands.
“Mr. Harrison and John Henry are both away … they went to town today. I’ll go for Mr. Barry.”
Mr. Barry came back with Anne, carrying a coil of rope to which was attached a clawlike instrument that had been the business end of a grubbing fork. Marilla and Anne stood by, cold and shaken with horror and dread, while Mr. Barry dragged the well, and Davy, astride the gate, watched the group with a face indicative of huge enjoyment.
Finally Mr. Barry shook his head, with a relieved air.
“She can’t be down there. It’s a mighty curious thing where she could have got to, though. Look here, young man, are you sure you’ve no idea where your sister is?”
“I’ve told you a dozen times that I haven’t,” said Davy, with an injured air. “Maybe a tramp come and stole her.”
“Nonsense,” said Marilla sharply, relieved from her horrible fear of the well. “Anne, do you suppose she could have strayed over to Mr. Harrison’s? She has always been talking about his parrot ever since that time you took her over.”
“I can’t believe Dora would venture so far alone but I’ll go over and see,” said Anne.
Nobody was looking at Davy just then or it would have been seen that a very decided change came over his face. He quietly slipped off the gate and ran, as fast as his fat legs could carry him, to the barn.
Anne hastened across the fields to the Harrison establishment in no very hopeful frame of mind. The house was locked, the window shades were down, and there was no sign of anything living about the place. She stood on the veranda and called Dora loudly.
Ginger, in the kitchen behind her, shrieked and swore with sudden fierceness; but between his outbursts Anne heard a plaintive cry from the little building in the yard which served Mr. Harrison as a toolhouse. Anne flew to the door, unhasped it, and caught up a small mortal with a tearstained face who was sitting forlornly on an upturned nail keg.
“Oh, Dora, Dora, what a fright you have given us! How came you to be here?”
“Davy and I came over to see Ginger,” sobbed Dora, “but we couldn’t see him after all, only Davy made him swear by kicking the door. And then Davy brought me here and run out and shut the door; and I couldn’t get out. I cried and cried, I was frightened, and oh, I’m so hungry and cold; and I thought you’d never come, Anne.”
“Davy?” But Anne could say no more. She carried Dora home with a heavy heart. Her joy at finding the child safe and sound was drowned out in the pain caused by Davy’s behavior. The freak of shutting Dora up might easily have been pardoned. But Davy had told falsehoods … downright coldblooded falsehoods about it. That was the ugly fact and Anne could not shut her eyes to it. She could have sat down and cried with sheer disappointment. She had grown to love Davy dearly … how dearly she had not known until this minute … and it hurt her unbearably to discover that he was guilty of deliberate falsehood.
Marilla listened to Anne’s tale in a silence that boded no good Davy-ward; Mr. Barry laughed and advised that Davy be summarily dealt with. When he had gone home Anne soothed and warmed the sobbing, shivering Dora, got her her supper and put her to bed. Then she returned to the kitchen, just as Marilla came grimly in, leading, or rather pulling, the reluctant, cobwebby Davy, whom she had just found hidden away in the darkest corner of the stable.
She jerked him to the mat on the middle of the floor and then went and sat down by the east window. Anne was sitting limply by the west window. Between them stood the culprit. His back was toward Marilla and it was a meek, subdued, frightened back; but his face was toward Anne and although it was a little shamefaced there was a gleam of comradeship in Davy’s eyes, as if he knew he had done wrong and was going to be punished for it, but could count on a laugh over it all with Anne later on.
But no half hidden smile answered him in Anne’s gray eyes, as there might have done had it been only a question of mischief. There was something else … something ugly and repulsive.
“How could you behave so, Davy?” she asked sorrowfully.
Davy squirmed uncomfortably.
“I just did it for fun. Things have been so awful quiet here for so long that I thought it would be fun to give you folks a big scare. It was, too.”
In spite of fear and a little remorse Davy grinned over the recollection.
“But you told a falsehood about it, Davy,” said Anne, more sorrowfully than ever.
Davy looked puzzled.
“What’s a falsehood? Do you mean a whopper?”
“I mean a story that was not true.”
“Course I did,” said Davy frankly. “If I hadn’t you wouldn’t have been scared. I HAD to tell it.”
Anne was feeling the reaction from her fright and exertions. Davy’s impenitent attitude gave the finishing touch. Two big tears brimmed up in her eyes.
“Oh, Davy, how could you?” she said, with a quiver in her voice. “Don’t you know how wrong it was?”
Davy was aghast. Anne crying … he had made Anne cry! A flood of real remorse rolled like a wave over his warm little heart and engulfed it. He rushed to Anne, hurled himself into her lap, flung his arms around her neck, and burst into tears.
“I didn’t know it was wrong to tell whoppers,” he sobbed. “How did you expect me to know it was wrong? All Mr. Sprott’s children told them REGULAR