CHAPTER XVII
SUSPENSE
"It doesn't, somehow, seem natural," said the cooper, as he took hisseat at the tea table, "to sit down without Ida. It seems as if half thefamily were gone."
"Just what I've said to myself twenty times to-day," remarked his wife."Nobody can tell how much a child is to them till they lose it."
"Not lose it," corrected Jack.
"I didn't mean to say that."
"When you used that word, mother, it made me feel just as if Ida wasn'tcoming back."
"I don't know why it is," said Mrs. Harding, thoughtfully, "but I've hadthat same feeling several times today. I've felt just as if something orother would happen to prevent Ida's coming back."
"That is only because she's never been away before," said the cooper,cheerfully. "It isn't best to borrow trouble, Martha; we shall haveenough of it without."
"You never said a truer word, brother," said Rachel, mournfully. "Man isborn to trouble as the sparks fly upward. This world is a vale of tears,and a home of misery. Folks may try and try to be happy, but that isn'twhat they're sent here for."
"You never tried very hard, Aunt Rachel," said Jack.
"It's my fate to be misjudged," said his aunt, with the air of a martyr.
"I don't agree with you in your ideas about life, Rachel," said herbrother. "Just as there are more pleasant than stormy days, so I believethere is much more of brightness than shadow in this life of ours, if wewould only see it."
"I can't see it," said Rachel.
"It seems to me, Rachel, you take more pains to look at the clouds thanthe sun."
"Yes," chimed in Jack, "I've noticed whenever Aunt Rachel takes up thenewspaper, she always looks first at the deaths, and next at the fatalaccidents and steamboat explosions."
"If," retorted Rachel, with severe emphasis, "you should ever be onboard a steamboat when it exploded, you wouldn't find much to laugh at."
"Yes, I should," said Jack, "I should laugh--"
"What!" exclaimed Rachel, horrified.
"On the other side of my mouth," concluded Jack. "You didn't wait tillI'd finished the sentence."
"I don't think it proper to make light of such serious matters."
"Nor I Aunt Rachel," said Jack, drawing down the corners of his mouth."I am willing to confess that this is a serious matter. I should feel asthey say the cow did, that was thrown three hundred feet up into theair."
"How's that?" inquired his mother.
"Rather discouraged," answered Jack.
All laughed except Aunt Rachel, who preserved the same severe composure,and continued to eat the pie upon her plate with the air of one gulpingdown medicine.
In the morning all felt more cheerful.
"Ida will be home to-night," said Mrs. Harding, brightly. "What an ageit seems since she went away! Who'd think it was only twenty-fourhours?"
"We shall know better how to appreciate her when we get her back," saidher husband.
"What time do you expect her home, mother? What did Mrs. Hardwick say?"
"Why," said Mrs. Harding, hesitating, "she didn't say as to the hour;but I guess she'll be along in the course of the afternoon."
"If we only knew where she had gone, we could tell better when to expecther."
"But as we don't know," said the cooper, "we must wait patiently tillshe comes."
"I guess," said Mrs. Harding, with the impulse of a notable housewife,"I'll make some apple turnovers for supper to-night. There's nothing Idalikes so well."
"That's where Ida is right," said Jack, smacking his lips. "Appleturnovers are splendid."
"They are very unwholesome," remarked Rachel.
"I shouldn't think so from the way you eat them, Aunt Rachel," retortedJack. "You ate four the last time we had them for supper."
"I didn't think you'd begrudge me the little I eat," said his aunt,dolefully. "I didn't think you counted the mouthfuls I took."
"Come, Rachel, don't be so unreasonable," said her brother. "Nobodybegrudges you what you eat, even if you choose to eat twice as much asyou do. I dare say Jack ate more of the turnovers than you did."
"I ate six," said Jack, candidly.
Rachel, construing this into an apology, said no more.
"If it wasn't for you, Aunt Rachel, I should be in danger of getting toojolly, perhaps, and spilling over. It always makes me sober to look atyou."
"It's lucky there's something to make you sober and stiddy," said hisaunt. "You are too frivolous."
Evening came, but it did not bring Ida. An indefinable sense ofapprehension oppressed the minds of all. Martha feared that Ida'smother, finding her so attractive, could not resist the temptation ofkeeping her.
"I suppose," she said, "that she has the best claim to her, but it wouldbe a terrible thing for us to part with her."
"Don't let us trouble ourselves about that," said Timothy. "It seems tome very natural that her mother should keep her a little longer than sheintended. Think how long it is since she saw her. Besides, it is not toolate for her to return to-night."
At length there came a knock at the door.
"I guess that is Ida," said Mrs. Harding, joyfully.
Jack seized a candle, and hastening to the door, threw it open. Butthere was no Ida there. In her place stood Charlie Fitts, the boy whohad met Ida in the cars.
"How are you, Charlie?" said Jack, trying not to look disappointed."Come in and tell us all the news."
"Well," said Charlie, "I don't know of any. I suppose Ida has got home?"
"No," answered Jack; "we expected her to-night, but she hasn't comeyet."
"She told me she expected to come back to-day."
"What! have you seen her?" exclaimed all, in chorus.
"Yes; I saw her yesterday noon."
"Where?"
"Why, in the cars," answered Charlie.
"What cars?" asked the cooper.
"Why, the Philadelphia cars. Of course you knew it was there she wasgoing?"
"Philadelphia!" exclaimed all, in surprise.
"Yes, the cars were almost there when I saw her. Who was that with her?"
"Mrs. Hardwick, her old nurse."
"I didn't like her looks."
"That's where we paddle in the same canoe," said Jack.
"She didn't seem to want me to speak to Ida," continued Charlie, "buthurried her off as quick as possible."
"There were reasons for that," said the cooper. "She wanted to keep herdestination secret."
"I don't know what it was," said the boy, "but I don't like the woman'slooks."