"Be spry, then, Joe, and catch it at the corner!"

Everybody soon knew that little Phronsie Pepper had gone off with
"a cross organ man and an awful monkey!" and in the course of an
hour dozens of people were out on the hot, dusty roads in search.

"What's the matter?" asked a testy old gentleman in the stage, of
Joel who, in his anxiety to see both sides of the road at once,
bobbed the old gentleman in the face so often as the stage lurched,
that at last he knocked his hat over his eyes.

"My sister's gone off with a monkey," explained Joel, bobbing over
to the other side, as he thought he caught sight of something pink
that he felt sure must be Phronsie's apron. "Stop! stop! there she
is!" he roared, and the driver, who had his instructions and was
fully in sympathy, pulled up so suddenly that the old gentleman
flew over into the opposite seat.

"Where?"

But when they got up to it Joel saw that it was only a bit of pink
calico flapping on a clothes-line; so he climbed back and away
they rumbled again.

The others were having the same luck. No trace could be found of
the child. To Ben, who took the Hingham road, the minutes
seemed like hours.

"I won't go back," he muttered, "until I take her. I can't see
mother's face!"