CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DON!

"We'd better get the ladder," Janet suggested.

They went down into the cellar and found it close by the door. It was only a matter of minutes before they had it waiting in readiness in the yard. Luckily Annie and Lucy were too busy preparing supper to notice them.

They were back in the house just in time to meet Chuck.

"He's gone," he announced, "and there was another man with him, and I heard him say he was due down town by five o 'clock."

"Are you sure be was the caretaker?" Phyllis inquired, and Chuck gave a satisfactory description.

"Then I'm off," she said as she hurried into her coat. "Give me time to got there before you start."

She hurried to the house on the next street and rang the bell violently, and waited; then she rang it again, three short rings.

"Perhaps I can make her think it's a telegram," she thought, and her scheme was rewarded, for after a little wait she heard some one scuffling downstairs. The door creaked as the bolt was drawn back, and then it opened a crack.

"What do you want?" Miss Pringle's voice quavered as she asked. Phyllis put her foot in the crack as she had seen villains do in the movies.

"Why, I just came around to see you for a minute Miss Pringle," she said sweetly. "I saw yoa come in here the other day, so I know where to find you and so to-day when the girls were wondering what had become of you I told them I knew and they asked me if I would come and see you and ask you if you would make the costumes for our Christmas play. It's to be a queer sort of play, and we want very original costumes, and, of course, you are the only person in the world that can advise us." Poor Phyllis was forced to pause for breath, but Miss Pringle had only time to whisper a flurried, "Oh, no young lady," before she was off again.

"The play is all. about India and the heroine -- Daphne Hillis is to take the part -- is a little slave, but of course she turns out to be the queen in the end, and Madge Cannon is to be the prince, and the important parts will be filled by the seniors and juniors. Just a few of our class are to be in it, but I'm one of them and so is my twin. We look so alike that we are to be pages, you know, and, --" a sound on the stairs made her heart stand still but she went bravely on -- "I never told you what a lark we had at our masquerade, did I? It was really a perfect circus, everybody mixed us up," -- Miss Pringle attempted to say something, and Phyllis interpreted it her own way.

"But of course you're more interested in the play, as you say. Well there have to be ever so many costumes. Daphne alone has three, one when she is the slave and another for the queen, and the third when the king condemns her to be beheaded. It's so sad, you know. He says 'Off with her head' and then Daphne lays her beautiful head on the block and the executioner lifts his terrible sword and --" she stopped.

Daphne's fair head was saved by the timely arrival of Chuck, carrying the sleeping Don.

Miss Pringle gave a scream of terror and tried to shut the door, but Phyllis's foot made that impossible.

"Out of my way," Chuck commanded in a voice so strong that, coming as it did on top of Phyllis's description of swords and executioners, poor Miss Pringle lost all the little presence of mind she had. She fell back limply, and Chuck gained the street.

Phyllis took her foot out of the door and closed it gently on the limp figure.

"Give him to me," she begged, as she caught up with Chuck.

"He's too heavy, but look at him all you want to; it's really Don, Phyllis, and you found him." Tears were running down Chuck's face, but he didn't even know it.

Phyllis took one of the little hands that hung limply across his shoulder and kissed it gently.

At the corner they found Janet, and a big burly policeman who was just hanging up the receiver of a police 'phone attached to the telegraph pole.

"So you've found the little man, glory be!" he exclaimed. "It will be a pill for the force to swallow, but they deserve it! To think I have passed that house every day and never suspected. Well, I'll be after making up for lost time now by watching it like a cat until his nibs comes home and then off he'll go!"

"And the woman?" Phyllis inquired.

"Sure, she'll go with him to keep him company," -- the policeman grinned at what he really considered fine wit, tightened his belt importantly and grasping his night stick more firmly he walked down the street and stopped in a business like way before Miss Pringle's door.

The girls escorted Chuck back to the house. Auntie Mogs had returned during their absence and met them at the door.

"Children, where have you been? I have been so worried -- " She stopped abruptly, as her eye fell on Chuck and his precious armful.

"Not little Don?" she asked excitedly.

"Yes, Auntie Mogs, we've found him." Phyllis's explanation tumbled out in hysterical phrases, the other two adding their own version, and in the midst of it Don woke up.

"I want to go home," he said sleepily and then, seeing Chuck, he opened his blue eyes wide in wonder.

"Give him to me," commanded Auntie Mogs, and she hugged him tight in her arms as she comforted and petted him.

Chuck, almost too excited for speech, called up his mother on the 'phone.

"Come straight over to Miss Carter's and bring Uncle Don with you," he said excitedly. "We have news for you, wonderful news."

He left the 'phone, grinning.

"I guess Mother had her hat on before she hung up the receiver," -- he laughed. "She didn't even wait to say good-by."

"No wonder," Auntie Mogs said, her lips brushing Don's gold hair.

"I want my daddy," Don announced. "I want to tell him lots of fings about that bad mans and that silly old woman who said she was my nurse. I told her she was not any such fing 'cause Nannie's my nurse, isn't she!"

"Of course she is, darling," Miss Carter assured him.

Don looked about him and smiled suddenly at Phyllis.

"You're my girl," he said, dimpling, "and that's your twin."

Phyllis was on her knees beside him in a minute, and he rumpled her hair contentedly until Annie ushered in Mrs. Vincent and Mr. Keith, all out of breath. 

"Chuck, what is it?" Mrs. Vincent asked eagerly.

For answer Miss Carter put Don into her arms.

The next few minutes were taken up by repeated explanations, while Don, held tight by his father's big hand, helped out by many illuminating bits of information about "ve bad mans and the silly woman."

"And I have you to thank, my dear." Mr. Keith held out his hand to Janet as they rose to go.

Chuck laughed, "Wrong guess, Uncle. This is the one," and he pointed to Phyllis.

Mr. Keith laughed, and took Phyllis's hand and gave it a mighty squeeze.

"Some day I will thank you for what you have done for me," he said huskily, "all of you. You have made me the happiest man in the world."

Mrs. Vincent kissed both the girls, and there was a glint of tears in her soft gray eyes as she shook hands with Miss Carter.

Chuck was the only one who was quite master of himself. He nodded, as befitted a hero, to them all, until he came to Phyllis.

"S'long," he said, taking her hand. "I'll see you to-morrow at two."

"So will I," Don's baby voice called from the depth of his father's shoulder; "and every day after that as long as I ever live," he added stoutly.

Continue to chapter 17