The dreadful day dragged to a close,
while the detectives and the entire police force scoured
the city and the surrounding country.
For the one day they had succeeded
in keeping the disappearance out of the papers, hoping
that if Rosanna was actually in the hands of kidnapers
they would not be frightened into taking her away or
harming her to insure their own safety.
Mrs. Hargrave went restlessly back
and forth between her own house and Mrs. Horton’s,
while Mrs. Horton walked endlessly up and down near
the telephone, listening and praying for news and
imagining horrible things.
Throwing her pride to the winds, Minnie
settled herself at Mrs. Horton’s, determined
to be on hand if her darling Miss Rosanna needed her.
Minnie, for all her dismal predictions, did not give
up hope but the thought of what might be happening
to Rosanna almost drove her wild. She could not
keep out of Rosanna’s room, yet she could not
bear to touch a thing that the delicate little hands
had handled. She wouldn’t dust. Rosanna’s
brush and comb lay on the dresser, and Minnie looked
at them tenderly, thinking of the long curls and wondering
where and how that lovely head was resting.
Mr. Culver went down town to a friend
of his and borrowed a small car. In this he scoured
the city, and penetrated the most disreputable portions
with carefully worded questions concerning a child
that had strayed away. At lunch time Helen asked
him if he would take her over to see Mary and Gwenny.
Helen had been spending her money for Gwenny, and
wanted to get her purchases where she could not see
them and have them remind her of Rosanna. Poor
Helen had cried herself almost sick. With all
her broken, loving little heart she had prayed that
she might be of some help in finding Rosanna, for
she too was sure that she would be restored.
Mr. Culver was glad to take Helen
over to Gwenny’s, so Helen did the things up
in a neat parcel and they started.
“Don’t you suppose if
everyone knew that Rosanna was lost that they would
all help to look for her?” asked Helen.
“It will all come out in to-morrow
morning’s paper,” answered Mr. Culver.
“They were afraid of scaring the people who are
holding her, if someone is holding her. The police
hoped to find her before the kidnapers were scared
into carrying her a long ways off, or hiding her perhaps
in some of the caves around here. You see, Helen,
with a family as rich as the Hortons are, a child
is sometimes held for what they call ransom; that
is, an immense sum of money which the parents are glad
to pay rather than have the child killed.”
Mary and Gwenny were greatly shocked
at the news, and wanted to hear all about it over
and over. Mr. Culver went on an errand and Helen
waited there with the two girls.
“Are they sure she wasn’t
hurt when she was trying to go somewhere?” asked
Mary.
“Mary saw a little girl run
over by an automobile last night,” said Gwenny.
“She wasn’t really run
over,” corrected Mary, “but pretty near.”
“You don’t think it was Rosanna?”
cried Helen eagerly.
“Oh, no, it wasn’t Rosanna,”
said Mary. “Rosanna never had on a dress
like that; it was just the kind of a dress I would
wear and, besides, her hair was cut short. And
she wasn’t pretty like Rosanna.”
“Did you see her close up?” asked Helen
curiously.
“Not very,” confessed
Mary. “She was all covered with dust where
the automobile had rolled her into the gutter, and
her head was cut, and she was unconscious: but
she didn’t look like Rosanna any more than I
do. I was just wondering if they had been to
the hospitals.”
“Yes, they went through them
all,” said Helen. “There were lots
of children that had been hurt one way and another,
and there was one little girl who had been hurt on
the head, and couldn’t tell who she was, but
she was not Rosanna. The detectives took a picture
of Rosanna along so they could be sure.”
“That must have been the little
girl I saw hurt,” said Mary. “It was
right on Third Street, and they took her down to the
Morton Memorial Hospital right away. But it wasn’t
Rosanna.”
“No, of course not,” sighed Helen.
“Of course not!” echoed Mary.
“I wish it was Rosanna,” said Helen
with a sob. “I wish it was!”
Leaving these thoughts to worry Mary
and Gwenny, Helen went off with her father, and in
the course of time reached home.
There was a message from Mrs. Horton
asking Helen to come to her as soon as she could.
“I wish you would go with me,”
said Helen wistfully to her mother.
“I do not think I had better,”
said Mrs. Culver. “She asked particularly
for you. Don’t get excited whatever is said.
I trust you to act as though I was at your side.
You know, darling, that I always trust you.”
Helen burst into tears. “Oh,
mother, dear, dear mother, think of poor, poor Rosanna
who has no mother at all to go to for advice!”
Mrs. Culver hugged her little girl
tight, wondering if little Rosanna had perhaps gone
to the young mother she had lost so long ago.
When Helen entered the library, she
found that old Mrs. Horton had collapsed, and was
lying on the sofa covered with a blanket. There
was a chill in the large, dark room. Mrs. Hargrave,
very sober and haggard looking, drew Helen to her
and kissed her. Then to Helen’s amazement
Mrs. Horton kissed her too.
“My dear little girl,”
she said feebly, “I want to tell you that I find
I have made a great mistake, and I am sorry for everything.
When Rosanna comes back, I want you two little girls
to be the best of friends. And I want you to
ask your father to stay with me. Perhaps he will
do it if you ask him. Mrs. Hargrave says that
he is working on an invention of some sort. He
will certainly have as much spare time to give to his
studies here as he could in any business I know of.
I want you to tell him all this from me.”
“Thank you so much,” said
Helen in her soft little voice. Then there being
nothing that she could think of to say, she stood waiting
for Mrs. Horton to speak. But Mrs. Horton wearily
turned her gray face to the wall and sighed.
“Would you mind if I go up and
speak to Minnie?” Helen asked timidly.
“Not at all,” answered
Mrs. Horton. “It comforts me to know that
there is a child in the house. I think you will
find Minnie in Rosanna’s room. You know
the way.”
Again she turned to the wall as though
she had parted with hope, and Helen ran quietly up
the broad stairs and down the corridor to Rosanna’s
room. Minnie was there sitting in her little sewing
chair, mending a dress of Rosanna’s. Her
tears fell on it as she worked.
“Don’t do that, Minnie!”
she said, throwing her arm around her. “I
know we will find Rosanna, and then everything will
come out right.”
She sat down on Minnie’s lap,
and told her everything that her father had said,
and all that Mrs. Horton had said, and then all about
her visit with Mary and Gwenny.
“As far as I go,” said
Minnie crossly, “the sooner they get all this
in the paper the better I will like it. Why,
if there is one thing on earth more than another that
will stir folks up it is a lost child. All the
people, and the Boy Scouts and everybody will be hunting
around everywhere.”
“And where do the Girl Scouts
come in?” asked Helen hotly. “They
will do just as good work as the Boy Scouts will.”
She got up and commenced to walk around the room.
Minnie, having finished her sewing, arose too and
after a moment’s thought produced from somewhere
a silk duster, and began wiping off the chairs and
other furniture.
Helen watched her idly as she moved
about the room, then the two large portraits caught
her attention.
“Wasn’t Rosanna’s
mother beautiful?” she said, staring. “Her
eyes seem to look right at you as if she was trying
to tell you something.”
“I don’t doubt she is,
the dear saint!” said Minnie. “You
can’t begin to know what a heap Rosanna thinks
of those pictures. She used to want to keep flowers
in front of each one the way they do in churches in
front of the saints; but she didn’t dare because
she knew her grandmother wouldn’t let her.
So she used to pick posies and tie little bunches and
slip them down behind the picture next the wall.
She asked me if I didn’t think it would mean
just as much. And I know it did, the lamb, the
dear, dear lamb! I told her grandmother about
it too, every word.
“Why, the day you went to Fontaine
Ferry gracious, it seems a year ago! she
fixed a little bit of a wreath of sweet peas and tucked
it behind the picture. It must be there yet all
withered.”
Minnie went over to the picture, and
taking the heavy frame in both hands held the picture
away from the wall a little.
Something fell to the floor, but it
was not the withered flowers.
When Minnie looked down, she stared
and stared and, still staring, crumpled down on her
knees, wild, round eyes on the object. Helen ran
to her.
“Oh, oh, oh,” moaned Minnie, “have
I gone mad?”
On the floor tied by a ribbon, was Rosanna’s
beautiful hair!
For a space Minnie and Helen stood
as though they had been frozen. Minnie touched
the long, soft locks and again moaned but all at once
Helen commenced to dance up and down.
“Now we have her, now we have
her!” she cried. “Come down and tell
Mrs. Horton, Minnie! We have found Rosanna!
Come, come!”
She tried to drag Minnie to the door,
but Minnie pulled back.
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“Why, don’t you see?”
cried Helen. “She cut it off because she
didn’t want anybody to know who she was, and
everyone always looked at her lovely hair. She
gave it to her mother. Oh, don’t
you see, Minnie? And then she started for your
house, and the automobile hit her, and I just know
that is our Rosanna in the hospital! Of course
Mary was sure it was not Rosanna on account of her
hair. Oh, come, let’s tell her grandmother.
She does truly and truly love Rosanna, Minnie.
Come, let’s tell her!”
“Yes, and then find out that
it isn’t Rosanna at all and break her heart
for sure,” said the practical Minnie. “You
go down and tell Mrs. Hargrave will she please come
up here a minute, and you see that she comes.
She will know what’s best to do.”
Minnie bent over the long locks so
carefully brushed and tied, and again her tears flowed
while Helen sped down the stairs on her errand.
Mrs. Hargrave, who had plenty of common
sense, followed at once, and her shock and surprise
when she saw the curls of dark hair equalled theirs.
“Minnie is quite right,”
she said, nodding her head. “Mrs. Horton
is in a very bad condition. I feel as though
the little girl in the hospital may be Rosanna, but
if we should find ourselves mistaken I don’t
know what the effect on Mrs. Horton would be.
Say good-by to Mrs. Horton, Helen, and go tell your
mother what we have found. Then ask your father
to bring you around to my house in the car. You,
Minnie, slip out the back door and meet me outside.
Don’t say one word until we see who this child
is. I don’t see why they have not reported
her if it is Rosanna. She must have been asked
to tell her name, and Rosanna is not grown up enough
to think of making up a name for the occasion.
Besides she would be glad to come home. If it
is Rosanna let me hurry!”
One by one they carefully left the
house. It was late, and Mrs. Horton seemed to
be dozing. Telling the cook to put off getting
dinner until Mrs. Horton had rested, Minnie slipped
out, and reached Mrs. Hargrave’s house just
as the car drove up. Mrs. Hargrave came briskly
trotting along the walk a moment later and was helped
in.
“It is a good thing that I am
a trustee and director over at that hospital,”
she remarked, “so they won’t try to fuss
about our seeing the child, whoever she is. If
it is only Rosanna ”
It was a swift ride. Every heart
was beating quickly. If it was only Rosanna!
Entering the hospital, Mrs. Hargrave
went to the superintendent’s office, where a
firm, stern looking woman met them.
“A child was hurt by an automobile
last night and brought here,” she said briefly.
Mrs. Hargrave interrupted her.
“I want to see her,” she said.
“It is not the Horton child,
if that is what you mean,” said the superintendent.
“This was a short-haired child in a very ordinary
dress. She was struck on the head and was unconscious
for hours. We are surprised that no inquiry has
been made.”
“I am making one now,”
said Mrs. Hargrave crisply. “I said I wanted
to see this child.”
“You know it is against the
rules, Mrs. Hargrave,” the superintendent objected.
“Fiddle-dee-dee!” said
Mrs. Hargrave. “What ward is she in?”
The superintendent gave up. She
had known that she would. Mrs. Hargrave always
had her own way. She led them down to the elevator,
where they waited and waited with what patience they
could gather until the car came slowly down and took
them up to the general wards.
They tiptoed in. The little girl
was bandaged and pale and sleeping heavily; but oh,
joy of joys, it was Rosanna!