The man stared at her with a falling jaw.

“Well, I guess I owe you one for this, Mary Bell!” he stammered.  “I’ll eat my shirt if I thought of your note again!”

It was too much.  Mary Bell began to dislodge little particles of dried mud carefully from the wheel, her eyes swimming, her breast rising.

“Right in her part of town, too!” pursued the contrite messenger; “but, as I say—­”

Mary Bell did not hear him.  After a while he was gone, and she was sitting on the steps, hopeless, dispirited, tired.  She sombrely watched the departing surreys and phaetons.  “I could have gone with them—­or with them!” she would think, when there was an empty seat.

The Parmalees went by; two carriage loads.  Jim Carr was in the phaeton with Carrie at his side.  All the others were in the surrey.

“I’m keeping ’em where I can have an eye on ’em!” Mrs. Parmalee called out, pointing to the phaeton.

Everybody waved, and Mary Bell waved back.  But when they were gone, she dropped her head on her arms.

Dusk came; the village was very still.  A train thundered by, and Potter’s windmill creaked and splashed,—­creaked and splashed.  A cow-bell clanked in the lane, and Mary Bell looked up to see the Dickeys’ cow dawdle by, her nose sniffing idly at the clover, her downy great bag leaving a trail of foam on the fresh grass.  From up the road came the faint approaching rattle of wheels.

Wheels?

The girl looked toward the sound curiously.  Who drove so recklessly?  She noticed a bank of low clouds in the east, and felt a puff of cool air on her cheek.

“It feels like rain!” she said, watching the wagon as it came near.  “That’s Henderson’s mare, and that’s their wooden-legged hired man!  Why, what is it?”

The last words were cried aloud, for the galloping old horse and driver were at the gate now, and eyes less sharp than Mary Bell’s would have detected something wrong.

“What is it?” she cried again, at the gate.  The man pulled up sharply.

“Say, ain’t there a man here, nowhere?” he demanded abruptly.  “I’ve been banging at every house along the way; ain’t there a soul in the place?”

“Dance!” explained Mary Bell.  “The Ladies’ Improvement Society in Pitcher’s new barn.  Why! what is it?  Mrs. Henderson sick?”

“No, ma’am!” said the old fellow, “but things is pretty serious down there!” He jerked his hand over his shoulder.  “There’s some little fellers,—­four or five of ’em!—­seems they took a boat to-day, to go ducking, and they’re lost in the tide-marsh!  My God—­an’ I never thought of the dance!” He gave a despairing glance at the quiet street.  “I come here to get twenty men—­or thirty—­for the search!” he said heavily.  “I don’t know what to do, now!”

Mary Bell had turned very white.

“There isn’t a soul here, Stumpy!” she said, terrified eyes on his face.  “There isn’t a man in town!  What can we do!—­Say!” she cried suddenly, springing to the seat, “drive me over to Mrs. Rowe’s; she’s married to Chess Bates, you know, at the store.  Go on, Stumpy!  What boys are they?”