She disappeared around the corner and the young people followed to see what was the matter.

Trouble there was in very truth.  Mrs. Paterno led the way stumbling and running.  Her face was flushed a deep, threatening crimson and her breath came fast.  By the arm she held little Pietro, who from exhaustion had ceased to scream and merely gave a gulping moan when the gravel scraped his bare knees as his mother jerked him along regardless of whether he was on his feet or whether she dragged him.  Behind them at some distance came Mrs. Tsanoff carrying her baby in her arms—­one of the twins that always seemed to be merely “holding on to life by the tips of its fingers,” to use Gertrude’s expression, and now seemed to have lost even that frail hold.  It lay in its mother’s arms white and with its eyes closed.

Mrs. Schuler ran to meet the Italian woman and lifted the worn child into her arms where he sank against her shoulder as if in a faint.

“Run up in the grove and get Dr. Watkins and Miss Gertrude,” Helen said to Roger.  “Ask them quietly to come here.  Don’t frighten the women.”

Roger dashed away, his swift feet slowing to a walk as he neared the bit of woods where he delivered his message in an undertone.  Ethel Blue meanwhile, had rushed into the house to tell Moya to heat plenty of water and to crack some ice, and Margaret had opened Mrs. Schuler’s closet of simple remedies and found the bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia.  Ethel Brown and James ran to meet Mrs. Tsanoff, Ethel taking the baby from her and James steadying her shaking steps by a stout arm under her elbow.

As Dr. Watkins ran around the corner of the house he came upon Helen trying to help Mrs. Paterno, who was pushing her away with both hands, while she kept looking over her shoulder and screaming hysterically.  Edward seized her hands and commanded her attention at once by speaking to her in Italian.  Although she did not know him she responded to his command to tell him of what she was afraid, and poured out a story of terror. “Mano, nera, mano nera—­the Black Hand,” she repeated over and over again, and Edward, who had heard her history, realized that something she had seen had set her mind in the old train of thought.  While Miss Merriam attended to the children he calmed the woman and then turned her over to Mrs. Schuler with instructions to put her to bed in a darkened room and to see that some one stayed with her or just outside her door.

Fortunately for the doctor his experience with the people among whom his father worked in his East Side chapel had given him a smattering of many languages and he was able to make out from Mrs. Tsanoff, although her fright and fatigue had made her forget almost all the English she knew, what had terrified her companion.  They had gone to the stationery shop of the Englishman who also sold ice cream and soda, she said, and they had had each a glass of soda and the children had each had an ice cream cone.