better call.”
So they both shouted till they were hoarse, yet nothing answered
but the frogs in full chorus.
“There is another tall tree over there, perhaps that’s the one,” said
Nan, whose heart sunk within her, though she still spoke bravely.
“I don’t think I can go any more; my boots are so heavy I can’t pull
’em;” and Robby sat down on a stone quite worn out.
“Then we must stay here all night. I don’t care much, if snakes
don’t come.”
“I’m frightened of snakes. I can’t stay all night. Oh, dear! I don’t
like to be lost,” and Rob puckered up his face to cry, when
suddenly a thought occurred to him, and he said, in a tone of
perfect confidence,
“Marmar will come and find me she always does; I ain’t afraid
now.”
“She won’t know where we are.”
“She didn’t know I was shut up in the ice-house, but she found me.
I know she’ll come,” returned Robby, so trustfully, that Nan felt
relieved, and sat down by him, saying, with a remorseful sigh,
“I wish we hadn’t run away.”
“You made me; but I don’t mind much Marmar will love me just
the same,” answered Rob, clinging to his sheet-anchor when all
other hope was gone.
“I’m so hungry. Let’s eat our berries,” proposed Nan, after a pause,
during which Rob began to nod.
“So am I, but I can’t eat mine, ’cause I told Marmar I’d keep them
all for her.”
“You’ll have to eat them if no one comes for us,” said Nan, who
felt like contradicting every thing just then. “If we stay here a great
many days, we shall eat up all the berries in the field, and then we
shall starve,” she added grimly.
“I shall eat sassafras. I know a big tree of it, and Dan told me how
squirrels dig up the roots and eat them, and I love to dig,” returned
Rob, undaunted by the prospect of starvation.
“Yes; and we can catch frogs, and cook them. My father ate some
once, and he said they were nice,” put in Nan, beginning to find a
spice of romance even in being lost in a huckleberry pasture.
“How could we cook frogs? we haven’t got any fire.”
“I don’t know; next time I’ll have matches in my pocket,” said Nan,
rather depressed by this obstacle to the experiment in
frog-cookery.
“Couldn’t we light a fire with a fire-fly?” asked Rob, hopefully, as
he watched them flitting to and fro like winged sparks.
“Let’s try;” and several minutes were pleasantly spent in catching
the flies, and trying to make them kindle a green twig or two. “It’s
a lie to call them fire -flies when there isn’t a fire in them,” Nan
said, throwing one unhappy insect away with scorn, though it
shone its best, and obligingly walked up and down the twigs to
please the innocent little experimenters.
“Marmar’s a good while coming,” said Rob, after another pause,
during which they watched the stars overhead, smelt the sweet fern
crushed under foot, and listened to the crickets’ serenade.
“I don’t see why God made any night; day is so much pleasanter,”
said Nan, thoughtfully.
“It’s to sleep in,” answered Rob, with a yawn.
“Then do go to sleep,” said Nan, pettishly.
“I want my own bed. Oh, I wish I could see Teddy!” cried Rob,
painfully reminded of home by the soft chirp of birds safe in their
little nests.
“I don’t believe your mother will ever find us,” said Nan, who was
becoming desperate, for she hated patient waiting of any sort. “It’s
so dark she won’t see us.”
“It was all black in the ice-house, and I was so scared I didn’t call
her, but she saw me; and she will see me now, no matter how dark
it is,” returned confiding Rob, standing up to peer into the gloom
for the help which never failed him.
“I see her! I see her!” he cried, and ran as fast as his tired legs
would take him toward a dark figure slowly approaching.
Suddenly he stopped, then turned about, and came stumbling back,
screaming in a great panic,