THE BOY PEDDLER

“What are we to do?” asked Amy, in dismay.

“We can’t leave her here,” added Mollie, and at the word “leave” the child broke into a fresh burst of tears.

“I’se losted!” she sobbed.  “I don’t got no home!  I tan’t find muvver!  Don’t go ’way!”

“Bless your heart, we won’t,” consoled Betty, still smoothing the tousled hair.  “We’ll take you home.  Which way do you live?”

“Dat way,” answered the child, pointing in the direction from which the girls had come.

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Grace.  “Have we got to go all the way back again?”

“Me live dere too!” exclaimed the lost child, indicating with one chubby finger the other direction.

“Gracious!  Can she live in two places at once?” cried Mollie.  “What a child!”

“She can’t mean that,” said Betty.  “Probably she is confused, and doesn’t know what she is saying.”

“Me do know!” came from the tot, positively.  She had stopped sobbing now, and appeared interested in the girls.  “Mamma Carrie live dat way, mamma Mary live dat way,” and in quick succession she pointed first in one direction and then the other.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Amy.  “It’s getting worse and worse!”

“You can’t have two mammas, you know,” said Betty, gently.  “Try and tell us right dearie, and we’ll take you home.”

“I dot two mammas,” announced the child, positively.  “Mamma Carrie live down there, mamma Mary live off there.  I be at mamma Carrie’s house, and I turn back, den I get losted.  Take me home!”

She seemed on the verge of tears again.

“Here!” exclaimed Grace, in desperation.  “Have a candy—­do—­two of them.  But don’t cry.  She reminds me of the twins,” she added, with just the suspicion of moisture in her own eyes.  The lost child gravely accepted two chocolates, one in each hand, and at once proceeded to get about as much on the outside of her face as went in her mouth.  She seemed more content now.

“I can’t understand it,” sighed Mollie.  “Two mothers!  Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“Me got two muvvers,” said the child, calmly, as she took a bite first of the chocolate in her left hand, and then a nibble from the one in the right.  “One live dat way—­one live udder way.”

“What can she be driving at?” asked Amy.

“There must be some explanation,” said Betty, as she got up from the stump on which she had been sitting, and placed the child on the ground.  “We’ll take her a little distance on the way we are going,” she went on.  “Perhaps we may meet someone looking for her.”

“And we can’t delay too long,” added Mollie.  “It will soon be supper time, and my aunt, where we are going to stay to-night, is quite a fusser.  I sent her a card, saying we’d be there, and if we don’t arrive she may call up our houses on the telephone, and imagine that all sorts of accidents have befallen us.”