The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale Part 29

CHAPTER XX

THE BOY PEDDLER

"What are we to do?" asked Amy, in dismay.

"We can't leave her here," added Mollie, and at the word "leave" the child broke into a fresh burst of tears.

"I'se losted!" she sobbed. "I don't got no home! I tan't find muvver!

Don't go 'way!"

"Bless your heart, we won't," consoled Betty, still smoothing the tousled hair. "We'll take you home. Which way do you live?"

"Dat way," answered the child, pointing in the direction from which the girls had come.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Grace. "Have we got to go all the way back again?"

"Me live dere too!" exclaimed the lost child, indicating with one chubby finger the other direction.

"Gracious! Can she live in two places at once?" cried Mollie.

"What a child!"

"She can't mean that," said Betty. "Probably she is confused, and doesn't know what she is saying."

"Me do know!" came from the tot, positively. She had stopped sobbing now, and appeared interested in the girls. "Mamma Carrie live dat way, mamma Mary live dat way," and in quick succession she pointed first in one direction and then the other.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Amy. "It's getting worse and worse!"

"You can't have two mammas, you know," said Betty, gently. "Try and tell us right dearie, and we'll take you home."

"I dot two mammas," announced the child, positively. "Mamma Carrie live down there, mamma Mary live off there. I be at mamma Carrie's house, and I turn back, den I get losted. Take me home!"

She seemed on the verge of tears again.

"Here!" exclaimed Grace, in desperation. "Have a candy--do--two of them.

But don't cry. She reminds me of the twins," she added, with just the suspicion of moisture in her own eyes. The lost child gravely accepted two chocolates, one in each hand, and at once proceeded to get about as much on the outside of her face as went in her mouth. She seemed more content now.

"I can't understand it," sighed Mollie. "Two mothers! Who ever heard of such a thing?"

"Me got two muvvers," said the child, calmly, as she took a bite first of the chocolate in her left hand, and then a nibble from the one in the right. "One live dat way--one live udder way."

"What can she be driving at?" asked Amy.

"There must be some explanation," said Betty, as she got up from the stump on which she had been sitting, and placed the child on the ground.

"We'll take her a little distance on the way we are going," she went on.

"Perhaps we may meet someone looking for her."

"And we can't delay too long," added Mollie. "It will soon be supper time, and my aunt, where we are going to stay to-night, is quite a fusser. I sent her a card, saying we'd be there, and if we don't arrive she may call up our houses on the telephone, and imagine that all sorts of accidents have befallen us."

"But we can't leave her all alone on the road," spoke Betty, indicating the child.

"Don't 'eeve me!" pleaded the lost tot. "Me want one of my muvvers!"

"It's getting worse and worse," sighed Mollie, wanting to laugh, but not daring to.

Slowly the girls proceeded in the direction they had been going. They hoped they might meet someone who either would be looking for the child, or else a traveler who could direct them properly to her house, or who might even a.s.sume charge of the little one. For it was getting late and the girls did not feel like spending the night in some strange place. It was practically out of the question.

They were going along, Betty holding one of the child's hands, the other small fist tightly clutching some sticky chocolates, when a turn of the road brought the outdoor girls in sight of a lad who was seated on a roadside rock, tying a couple of rags around his left foot, which was bleeding.

Beside the boy, on the ground, was a pack such as country peddlers often carry. The lad seemed in pain, for as the girls approached, their footfalls deadened by the soft dust of the road, they heard him murmur:

"Ouch! That sure does hurt! It's a bad cut, all right, and I don't see, Jimmie Martin, how you're going to do much walking! Why couldn't you look where you were going, and not step on that piece of gla.s.s?"

He seemed to be finding fault with himself.

"Gracious!" exclaimed Mollie. "I hope this isn't another lost one. We seem to be getting the habit."

"He appears able to look after himself," said Amy.

The boy heard their voices and looked up quickly. Then, after a glance at them, he went on binding up his foot. But at the sight of him the little girl cried:

"Oh, it's Dimmie! Dat's my Dimmie! He take me to my two muvvers!" She broke away from Betty and ran toward the boy peddler.

"Why, it's Nellie Burton!" the lad exclaimed. "Whatever are you doing here?"

"I'se losted!" announced the child, as though it was the greatest fun in the world. "I'se losted, and dey found me, but dey don't know where my two muvvers is. 'Oo take me home, Dimmie."

"Of course I will, Nellie. That is, if I can walk."

"Did oo hurt oo's foot?"

"Yes, Nellie. I stepped on a piece of gla.s.s, and it went right through my shoe. But it's stopped bleeding now."

"Do you know this little girl?" asked Betty. "We found her down the road, but she can't seem to tell us where she lives. First she points in one direction and then the other, and--"

"And we can't understand about her two mothers," broke in Mollie. "Do, please, if you can, straighten it out. Do you know her?"

"Yes, ma'am," answered the boy peddler, and his voice was pleasant. He took off a rather ragged cap politely, and stood up on one foot, resting the cut one on the rock. "She's Nellie Burton, and she lives about a mile down that way," and he pointed in the direction from which the girls had come.

"I live dere sometimes," spoke the child, "and sometimes down dere," and she indicated two directions. "I dot two muvvers."

"What in the world does she mean?" asked Mollie, hopelessly.

"That's what she always says," spoke the boy. "She calls one of her aunts her mamma--it's her mother's sister, you see. She lives about a mile from Nellie's house, and Nellie spends about as much time at one place as she does at the other. She always says she has two mothers."

"I _has_" announced the child, calmly, accepting another chocolate from Grace.

"And you know Nellie?" asked Betty, pointedly.